Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2024

Context:

The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) 2024 highlights how corruption is a significant barrier to effective climate action.

Corruption and Climate Action:

1. Hinders Ambitious Policies: Corruption favors the interests of narrow, powerful groups at the expense of the broader public good, making it harder to adopt effective and ambitious climate policies.
2. Weakens Governance and Transparency: Corruption undermines governance structures, weakens law enforcement, and reduces transparency in environmental decision-making, making it difficult to implement climate change strategies.
3. Misuse of Climate Funds: Countries most vulnerable to climate change often have CPI scores below 50, which correlates with the diversion and misuse of climate funds intended to combat climate impacts.
4. Marginalizes Vulnerable Populations: Corruption deepens the vulnerability of already marginalized populations who are disproportionately affected by climate change.
5. Undermines Multilateralism: Corruption increases opacity in climate conferences and allows influential fossil fuel lobbyists to distort the global climate agenda, undermining the effectiveness of international climate action.

Other Key Highlights of the CPI Report:

• 85% of the World’s Population lives in countries with CPI scores under 50 (indicating high levels of perceived corruption).
• India: Scored 38 out of 100, a drop of one point from 2023, ranking 96th.
• Least Corrupt Countries: Denmark, Finland, and Singapore.
• Most Corrupt Countries: South Sudan, Somalia, and Venezuela.

Recommendations:

1. Put Integrity at the Centre of Climate Efforts: The UN Convention Against Corruption is a key framework that can support efforts to combat corruption in climate governance.
2. Enhance Investigations and Protections: Strengthen anti-corruption bodies and provide greater protection for environmental defenders who often face risks for speaking out.
3. Shield Climate Policymaking: Create mechanisms that detect and manage conflicts of interest, ensuring that policymaking processes are not unduly influenced by corrupt practices.
4. Strengthen Citizen Engagement: Make climate finance and projects more transparent, ensuring that information is open, accessible, and easily understood by the public.

Conclusion:

The CPI 2024 underscores the critical role that corruption plays in impeding climate action. By undermining governance, misusing resources, and distorting global negotiations, corruption hampers the world’s collective ability to address the climate crisis effectively. The report calls for integrating integrity into climate efforts and enhancing transparency and accountability to improve climate governance globally.