Why the Green Climate Fund Became a Trump Target: QuickTake Q&A

In his announcement that the U.S. was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, the world’s landmark deal to fight climate change, President Donald Trump took aim at the little-known Green Climate Fund as an example of how the U.S. was being cheated by the deal. While the fund may sound like a dull technical mechanism (“nice name,” Trump said in an aside), it’s seen as a vital component of the Paris deal -- one that could make or break the accord.

First conceived in 2009 at a United Nations conference, the fund was designed to help ease tensions between rich and poor nations over responsibility for warming temperatures and who should pay for the damages sustained due to climate change. It was set up to distribute a slice of the $100 billion a year pledged by richer nations to help poor and vulnerable countries deal with the worst impacts of climate change. Based in South Korea, managed by a 24-person board and accountable to the United Nations, the fund is the most well-known of almost 100 bilateral and multilateral climate funds around the world.