UN announces first Green Climate Fund meeting

The first meeting of the board of the UN's new Green Climate Fund (GCF) will take place later this month.

The meeting, which is intended to draw up plans for the launch of a new global climate change fund capable of delivering up to $100 billion a year to developing countries from 2020 onwards, will now take place between August 23 and 25, after a 24-strong panel was finally confirmed this week.

However, Henning Wuester, senior manager at the fund's interim secretariat said this week that the governing panel's membership had now been agreed and the first meeting had been scheduled with a view to a second meeting being confirmed before this year's main climate change summit in Doha in December.

The UN's climate change secretariat, the UNFCCC, failed to respond to requests for information on the agenda for the meeting at the time of going to press.

However, the GCF is widely regarded as crucial to the success of the timetable agreed at the Durban Summit, which requires countries to finalise a new legal treaty by 2015 that will then come into effect from 2020.

Developing countries are insistent that they will require substantial funding from industrialised nations to help them invest in climate adaptation and emissions reductions measures. The proposed $100 billion fund is intended to meet these demands and the new board has been tasked with drawing up a plan detailing how the funds will be raised, managed, and distributed.

The panel is expected to look at a range of fund-raising options, including proposals for international levies on aviation and shipping emissions, as well as a significant expansion of the global carbon market.

The group is also likely to look at how to bridge the looming funding gap between the $30 billion of fast start funding promised at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit, which comes to an end next year, and the full launch of the GCF in 2020.

However, the first meeting of the group is likely to focus on technical issues, including a decision on where to locate the GCF secretariat. Germany, Mexico, Namibia, Poland, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland have all nominated themselves to host the fund.

In related news, Japanese newspaper the Nikkei reported today that the country is to sign new clean technology transfer agreements with India, Indonesia and Vietnam, with the first deals expected to be announced later this year.

The news is the latest development in the Japanese government's plan to fund emission reductions in developing countries in a way that is designed to boost demand for Japanese clean tech firms.

 

 

Image 01 - Doha skyline. Amjra.