The aim of this paper is develop a new institutional architecture and governance structure for the Financial Mechanism (FM) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) which would enjoy broad political acceptance among the main countries and country groupings, in the sense that: those who (have to) pay would wish to use this mechanism, and those who (are entitled to) receive would wish to receive payments through it. There are a number of reasons why such broad-based ownership is of particular importance to climate change finance, and why existing institutions fail to command this sort of broad political buy-in or ownership, and the paper will discuss these in more detail.