Green Climate Fund poised for initial capitalisation

Just weeks after the German Government pledged up to US$1 billion for the Green Climate Fund, senior government officials from OECD and other countries met in Bonn for the Fund’s second Initial Resource Mobilization meeting.

The informal consultation was attended by representatives from more than 20 governments who advised on the Fund’s initial capitalisation. The first formal Green Climate Fund Pledging Conference is scheduled to take place in November this year when donors are to announce their initial contributions for the Fund.

“The Green Climate Fund is up but it is not yet running,” said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when addressing contributors during the opening session. She added: “In order for that to happen, governments need to move from words to deeds. Between now and the next UN Climate Change Convention in Lima the capitalisation of the Fund must begin. Initial funding of 10 billion US$ would be a good start and a good signal of intent as the world looks forward to a new climate agreement in 2015 that is both universal and meaningful.”

This second Resource Mobilization meeting since May, focused on developing the policy framework within which countries will be able to make contributions to the Fund to help it achieve its paradigm-shift goals.

Donor countries reviewed financial terms and policies for contributions to enable governments to make formal pledges. Final recommendations will be put to the Fund’s Board at its eighth meeting in October.

Potential donors also held bilateral consultations with Hela Cheikhrouhou, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund.

Once the Fund is appropriately capitalised, initial grants, loans or capital will be provided for projects and programmes that enable developing countries boost sustainable development whilst curbing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change.

“The Bonn meeting, combined with the earlier Oslo meeting, has set in place a solid  framework which will provide governments the confidence necessary for successful pledging in November,” said the Chair of the consultation, H.E. Ambassador Lennart Båge of Sweden.

The Green Climate Fund consultation in Bonn was the last milestone before United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon convenes heads of state and government at his Climate Summit on Sept. 23, 2014, in New York.

The Green Climate Fund is to become the main instrument for multilateral climate finance in the future. It will channel a significant share of international climate finance needed to keep global temperature increases to below 2 degree Celsius.

At the Cancun Summit in 2010 heads of state committed to jointly mobilise US$100 billion per year by 2020 from a variety of sources to address the adaptation and mitigation needs of developing countries.

 

About the Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund is a new multilateral fund that was established by Parties attending the 2010 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Cancun, Mexico. The Fund is designed as an operating entity of the Convention’s financial mechanism. The Fund’s purpose is to promote, within the context of sustainable development, the paradigm shift towards low-emission and climate-resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to help limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

The Green Climate Fund’s Governing Instrument was developed and approved in 2011. Its Board declared the Fund operational and ready for business in May 2014.

For more information visit the Fund’s website at GCFund.org, or contact the Secretariat at:

 

Tel.:       +82 32 458 6062

E-mail: msmitall@gcfund.org