UN Green Climate Fund Approves First Projects for $168 Million
- Eight projects win funding from the South Korean institution
- Fund first proposed in 2009 is now fully operational
The United Nations Green Climate Fund approved $168 million of funding for its first eight projects, a boost to the global climate talks a month before 195 nations aim to seal a new deal requiring all nations to limit greenhouse gases.
The projects range from a wetlands protection program in Peru to development of early warning systems in Malawi, the fund said Friday in an e-mailed statement. The total cost of the programs, including input from UN agencies and private investors, is $624 million, though over the next five years they may generate as much as $1.3 billion of investments, according to the fund.
The awards mean the $10 billion fund is finally operational, six years after it was first mooted at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, and five years after it was formally established. Developing countries have long said the action they can take to fight climate change and adapt to its effects is dependent on the funding they receive from the industrialized world, and the Green Climate Fund is seen as one of the principal conduits.
“The Fund is now truly up and running, and I am confident the board will go on to scale and fund much bigger projects in the near future, living up to our ambition,” Henrik Harboe, co-chair of the board of the fund, said in the statement.
Climate finance is one of the major sticking points at the UN talks, with developing countries seeking more clarity on how much funding will be available in the future, and how much progress industrialized nations are making on a pledge to ramp up funding to an annual $100 billion by 2020.
An OECD report last month said funding totaled $62 billion in 2014, a figure questioned by environmental campaign groups because it includes loans and development aid.
The Green Climate Fund has received $10.2 billion in pledges, though only $5.9 billion of those have been signed for. The biggest pledge of $3 billion came from the U.S., where Congress has yet to approve the funding.
The other projects awarded funding on Friday are in Senegal, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Fiji, with regional projects in eastern Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.