health, income and food security. Additionally climate change programmes aim to
affect not just immediate outcomes but outcomes over generations. Last but not
least, is the absence of data and capacity in this area – most evaluators are trained in
more traditional sectors and hence think about evaluations in traditional ways.
Indeed Picciotto (2007) identifies climate change as a significant challenge for
development evaluation. Evaluating climate change action is a relatively new
frontier for the field that has only emerged in the first decade of the 2000s (van
den Berg and Feinstein, 2009). We maintain that evaluation in the field of environment and sustainable development has the opportunity to leapfrog, while borrowing
from other disciplines, but also innovating to generate high quality and relevant
evidence to inform national and international efforts directed at environment and
sustainable development (Rowe 2012; Uitto 2014). This book has its origins in the
Climate-Eval community of practice started and hosted by the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF. The book brings together state-of-the-art contributions of
evaluations pertaining to climate change policy, mitigation and adaptation.
1.2 Book Structure
The book contains 18 chapters in which leading authors examine innovative and
emerging evaluation knowledge and practice of climate change and its link to
sustainable development. The authors discuss methodologies and approaches to
better understand, learn from and assess interventions, strategies and policies. The
contributions also discuss evaluation challenges encountered and lessons learned to
better understand and tackle difficult areas of evaluation.
Chapter 2 or overview chapter by Rob D. van den Berg and Lee CandoNoordhuizen, ‘Action on climate change: What does it mean and where does it
lead to?’ discusses the micro-macro paradox of climate change action. There is
evidence that climate action works and achieves direct impact – yet climate change
seems unstoppable. An analysis of multiple comprehensive evaluations indicates
that technology and knowledge are available to fight climate change. However,
economic development and subsidies harmful to the climate still outweigh remedial
climate action with at least a factor of one hundred. Current successes of
programmes and projects will not impact global trends unless unsustainable subsidies and actions are stopped.
Chapter 3 written by Rob D. van den Berg, ‘Mainstreaming impact evidence in
climate change and sustainable development’ examines the demand for impact
evidence and concludes that this demand goes beyond the experimental evidence
that is produced during the lifetime of an intervention. Van den Berg argues for
impact considerations to be mainstreamed throughout interventions, programmes
and policies and for evaluations to gather evidence where available, rather than
focusing the search for impact and its measurements on one or two causal mechanisms that are chosen for verification through experimentation.
1 Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development: Introduction
7
affect not just immediate outcomes but outcomes over generations. Last but not
least, is the absence of data and capacity in this area – most evaluators are trained in
more traditional sectors and hence think about evaluations in traditional ways.
Indeed Picciotto (2007) identifies climate change as a significant challenge for
development evaluation. Evaluating climate change action is a relatively new
frontier for the field that has only emerged in the first decade of the 2000s (van
den Berg and Feinstein, 2009). We maintain that evaluation in the field of environment and sustainable development has the opportunity to leapfrog, while borrowing
from other disciplines, but also innovating to generate high quality and relevant
evidence to inform national and international efforts directed at environment and
sustainable development (Rowe 2012; Uitto 2014). This book has its origins in the
Climate-Eval community of practice started and hosted by the Independent Evaluation Office of the GEF. The book brings together state-of-the-art contributions of
evaluations pertaining to climate change policy, mitigation and adaptation.
1.2 Book Structure
The book contains 18 chapters in which leading authors examine innovative and
emerging evaluation knowledge and practice of climate change and its link to
sustainable development. The authors discuss methodologies and approaches to
better understand, learn from and assess interventions, strategies and policies. The
contributions also discuss evaluation challenges encountered and lessons learned to
better understand and tackle difficult areas of evaluation.
Chapter 2 or overview chapter by Rob D. van den Berg and Lee CandoNoordhuizen, ‘Action on climate change: What does it mean and where does it
lead to?’ discusses the micro-macro paradox of climate change action. There is
evidence that climate action works and achieves direct impact – yet climate change
seems unstoppable. An analysis of multiple comprehensive evaluations indicates
that technology and knowledge are available to fight climate change. However,
economic development and subsidies harmful to the climate still outweigh remedial
climate action with at least a factor of one hundred. Current successes of
programmes and projects will not impact global trends unless unsustainable subsidies and actions are stopped.
Chapter 3 written by Rob D. van den Berg, ‘Mainstreaming impact evidence in
climate change and sustainable development’ examines the demand for impact
evidence and concludes that this demand goes beyond the experimental evidence
that is produced during the lifetime of an intervention. Van den Berg argues for
impact considerations to be mainstreamed throughout interventions, programmes
and policies and for evaluations to gather evidence where available, rather than
focusing the search for impact and its measurements on one or two causal mechanisms that are chosen for verification through experimentation.
1 Evaluating Climate Change Action for Sustainable Development: Introduction
7