$40 million boost for Green Climate Fund from South Korea
Kyung-Ho Choo, Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, announces South Korea's support for the GCF at United Nations finance talks in Incheon
South Korea has pledged US$40 million to the UN backed Green Climate Fund to support developing countries' access to the initiative.
Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, Mr Kyung-Ho Choo, made the announcement in United Nations finance talks in Incheon, South Korea (pictured right) on Monday.
Ensuring that developing countries can access the Fund has been a critical debating point during its formation and South Korea's pledge will seek to address the issue.
Mr Choo called on UN envoys to take action on long term finance pledges in order for the fund to be operational by 2014.
“In order for the GCF to meet such expectation, and to address climate change swiftly and effectively, we should agree on the long term finance issues quickly,” he said.
The city of Songdo in South Korea will host the GCF, which forms part of a wider UN goal to generate US$100 billion for low carbon investment by 2020.
Governments agreed to set up the GCF in 2010, but progress has been hampered by weak economic growth.
Paul Watkinson, France’s lead climate negotiator, said that the country has allocated €2 billion a year towards climate mitigation and adaptation projects up to 2015 through the Agence Française de Développement (AFD).
Mr Watkinson said: “They’ll be putting at least 50 per cent of their resources towards climate activities, which is at least €2 billion a year in the coming years. It’s very difficult to pull out upfront how much support for adaptation will be provided. It is so closely linked to other development priorities.”
The UN also revealed that the US will report on its 2013 climate finance numbers at the forthcoming COP19 summit in Warsaw this November.
It is currently unclear what future US finance pledges could look like. The US contributed roughly $7.5 billion to global $30 billion climate finance flows between 2010-2012.
President Obama’s Climate Action Plan did not guarantee further funding, saying the administration intended to: “build on this progress as well as focus our efforts on combining our public resources with smart policies to mobilize much larger flows of private investment in low-emissions and climate resilient infrastructure.
