Wealthier nations pledge more funds to help poorer ones to fight climate change
Green Climate Fund continues to attract more pledges even as wealthier countries on Friday promised nearly $9.8 billion over the next four years to an international fund to help poorer nations develop cleanly and adapt to climate stresses, with nearly a dozen nations doubling their previous commitments.
The total was slightly higher than the $9.3 billion committed to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at its first pledging conference in 2014, and came despite the absence of commitments by previous major donors such as the United States.
Climate finance analysts welcomed the stepped-up pledges – 11 of the 27 donor governments doubled their previous commitments – but said the totals were not rising as fast as the climate-change threats poor nations must deal with.
“It’s quite clear we have governments all over the world declaring climate emergencies, and far more finance from all sources is needed to adequately address the challenge,” said Joe Thwaites, a finance researcher with the U.S.-based World Resources Institute.
In its first five years the fund received total promises of a little over $10 billion.
But because the United States, under President Donald Trump, reneged on two-thirds of its initial $3 billion pledge, and currency values changed, it effectively had only $7.2 billion to spend, said Yannick Glemarec, its executive director.
The new commitments, if fulfilled, will effectively give it 70% more money to spend each year, with additional pledges likely in coming months, he said.
The funding is still a drop in the ocean compared with the estimated $3 trillion to $7 trillion a year needed to shift the world’s economy onto a more sustainable and climate-friendly path, Glemarec said.
But if used to show what is possible in developing nations and cut risks for private investors there, it could help spur the much larger investments needed to make that shift, he said.
Gas-rich Qatar, at the U.N. Secretary-General’s climate summit in New York last month, pledged $100 million to help least-developed countries and struggling small islands cope with climate threats.
Other countries who pledged to double their contributions include New Zealand,South Korea,Canada and Japan.