How to Efficiently Mobilize Climate Finance: Best Practices Among EU Member States and Data Envelopment Analysis

This diploma thesis aspires to contribute to the scholarship regarding the challenge of efficiently mobilizing international climate finance to meet the growing needs of the Global South in order to successfully address the global issue of climate change. While the European Union is often viewed by scholars as a leader in climate action, significant variation exists among its member states regarding the quantity and quality of funds mobilized. Adopting a methodology based on two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), this research assesses the mobilization efficiency of 18 EU member states using data from 2021 and 2022. Theoretically grounded in Constructivism (and its specific conception of Normative Power Europe) and Liberalism, the study tests hypotheses regarding the influence of European identity, support for multilateralism, salience of environmental issues, inequality, and government ideology. The analysis identifies Sweden as the most efficient actor, while revealing significant inefficiencies in several Central and Eastern European states. The second-stage analysis suggests that the salience of environmental issues among the domestic population is the primary driver of mobilization efficiency, lending support to the view that societal preferences fundamentally shape state behavior. This...