Financing Sustainable Just Energy Transitions: Challenges of the JETP Initiative

Submitted on 10 April 2026

Contribution to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP 30 Presidency Roadmap on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in a Just, Orderly and Equitable Manner.

About the Contribution:

This contribution is a response to an invitation by the COP30 Presidency to submit inputs to the COP 30 Presidency Roadmap on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in a Just, Orderly and Equitable Manner.

Research used in the submission were also contributed by Dr Basani Baloyi, Programme Director, and Ms Joan Stott, Senior Programme Office, Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ, South Africa, Mr Bhima Yudhistira, Executive Director, Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), Mr Shafic Osman, PhD Candidate, London School of Economics (LSE) School of Law and Ms Swasha Fernando, Legal Counsel, Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Our submission is based on our multi-institutional, multi-stakeholder project Equity and the Global Climate Finance Architecture: An Evaluation of the JETP Framework (hereinafter known as the JETP Project) and draws on work conducted and papers published as part of this ongoing research as well as work conducted by the project partner organisations. The project is conducted under the auspices of the Climate Finance for Equitable Transitions (CLiFT) initiative aimed at exploring the climate finance supply chain within the context of the multilateral climate change regime, international financial architecture and the multi-layered landscape of international economic law.

The JETP project is funded by the British Academy and University of Warwick Policy Support Fund.

For further queries, please contact: jetp@warwick.ac.uk

Executive Summary:

The contribution examines the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) as a mechanism for financing and accelerating energy transitions in developing countries. While JETPs have emerged as flagship initiatives by developed countries for supporting developing countries' energy transitions away from fossil fuels, this evidence identifies significant concerns regarding their design, financing architecture, and implications for achieving global climate objectives.

We set out ten interconnected concerns with the JETP model and its associated financial instruments that can undermine the efficacy of financing for just, orderly and equitable transitions away from fossil fuels:

1. Limited financing commitments relative to energy transition costs.
2. Over-reliance on debt instruments rather than grants, creating fiscal burdens.
3. Market-led derisking approach to catalyse private finance at the cost of public-led approaches to financing energy transitions.
4. Questionable additionality of committed finance, potentially diverting from other sustainable development needs.
5. Extensive conditionality attached to JETP financing, including policy and regulatory reforms that can undermine rather than progress climate action
6. Inadequate focus on social and economic transition risks and limited funding to mitigate these risks.
7. JETPs confer substantial policy leverage to the members of the International Partners Group (IPG) over host countries relative to financing provided and less commitment from the developed countries.
8. Regulatory risks emerging from policy and regulatory reforms and financial instrument design without corresponding reform to the international financial architecture (IFA).
9. Legal risks from investment protection frameworks that may constrain current and future climate action
10. (In)compatibility with multilateral climate commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement.

Our analysis reveals a critical tension: while JETPs claim to advance country ownership and locally developed policy processes, the initiative remains premised on a donor-dominated aid framework rather than as a genuine implementation of international cooperation and developed countries’ obligations under the UNFCCC. This design means that strategic priorities of the JETPs and climate finance more generally are driven by the interests of developed countries, multilateral development banks (MDBs) and private financial institutions that constitute the IPG for each JETP rather than by stakeholders in JETP host countries. This can lead to a loss of policy space in developing countries and can undermine the core principles of the multilateral climate regime and weaken climate action globally.

JETPs go beyond the transfer of financial resources and involves legal, regulatory and policy reforms in developing countries and reshapes state engagement with markets and civil society. This means the JETP has wider implications for developing countries beyond access to climate finance and can impact on local and national law and policymaking and their interactions in the broader global economy and international law.

We make four sets of recommendations for financing just, orderly and equitable energy transitions to counter the risks of reliance on debt instruments and private finance; to counter legal and regulatory risks arising from private investments; to counter social and economic transition and governance risks; and to ensure compatibility with multilateral climate commitments.

Energy financing platforms, such as JETPs, should function within the climate finance legal framework, respecting the obligations of developing countries and is developed in a holistic, inclusive and participatory manner taking into account the sustainable development needs and human rights of all stakeholders. Ultimately, financing just energy transitions must be part of a broader package of reforms to the current system of global economic governance and international economic law, including dealing with significant debt burdens of developing countries and substantially reforming the asymmetrical international investment regime.

This contribution was submitted by:

• Professor Celine Tan, Professor of International Economic Law, Warwick Law School, University of Warwick, UK
• Dr Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School. University of Essex, UK
• Dr Gamze Erdem Türkelli, Associate Research Professor in Public International Law, Human Rights and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Author