A two-year drought – its worst in decades – was followed last November by devastating floods. The double crisis is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people, displaced millions more, destroyed livelihoods, and exacerbated severe hunger and water scarcity.

For the East African nation, this was not just a one-off, freak event. Cycles of drought and flooding are becoming more frequent, intense and unpredictable as civilians also come under attack by militants waging an ongoing civil war.

Channeling donor cash to help fragile countries cope with the growing impacts of climate change should be the core mission of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). But, since its creation nearly 14 years ago, barely a single dollar from the UN’s flagship fund has reached Somalia.

Its new head wants to change that. Mafalda Duarte marked her first semester as the fund’s executive director with a visit to Somalia where she promised a different approach to get more money to the world’s poorest.

“We have to be deliberate, be more proactive,” she told Climate Home in an exclusive interview. “We cannot operate like in other countries where we might just sit and wait for them to bring proposals to us. Because of low capacity [in vulnerable countries], we have to work hand in hand with government to put forward a plan.”

Current mandate “not enough”

The Green Climate Fund, which has received pledges of $12.8 billion for the next four years, finances 253 projects in 129 developing countries. It has a mandate to split its resources equally between emissions-cutting and adaptation activities – and to allocate at least half of the latter to the most vulnerable countries.

But Duarte told Climate Home that “those parameters are not enough” anymore. “Even though we are compliant, it is still not enough to get this to support countries like Somalia,” she said.

A Somali herder tries to keep his cows alive amid a devastating drought. Photo: UNICEF Ethiopia/2022/Mulugeta Ayene

Having listened to the priorities of ministers, business leaders and civil society in Mogadishu, the Green Climate Fund is now preparing to invest more than $100 million in Somalia over the next 12 months.

A first project – already in the pipeline before this month’s visit – should give isolated communities access to off-grid solar energy, as part of a broader pan-African effort covering 70 million people. Funding proposals to boost the climate resilience of Somalia’s agricultural sector and improve food security could be put in front of the fund’s board for approval as early as July.

Building resilience

The Portuguese executive director, who took the fund’s helm last August, said this new targeted approach would not be limited to Somalia. “You will see us do more,” she said. “We will look at the list of the most vulnerable countries, where we are doing almost nothing at the moment, and we will endeavour to do something similar.”

Welcoming the direction charted by Duarte, Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, said “pushing” the fund’s biggest partners, like the World Bank and UN agencies, to use its money for more work in vulnerable countries will be key to its success.

“A country like Somalia will depend on international access entities that often want to do the easier rather than the harder stuff, so it’s important to overcome their reluctance,” added the experienced GCF watcher.

UN climate fund axes Nicaragua forest project over human rights concerns

Duarte believes that UN agencies and multilateral development banks need to coordinate their efforts to limit the damage from future climate disasters. “We cannot keep being reactive and provide humanitarian assistance when the next mega-drought or flood hits,” she said. “We have to work collectively and build the resilience of the communities.”

The GCF’s head wants to shake up how the fund operates more widely. Setting out simpler rules and processes is the next item on her reform agenda, with the goal of moving away from “a one-size-fits-all approach”.

Poorer countries with less administrative capacity have long complained about the difficulty and time it takes to access the fund’s resources, despite a dedicated programme to help them do that.

“Whether it is a country like Somalia, or one like Brazil or India, it doesn’t matter – it is all the same [now],” Duarte said. “That, of course, does not work. We are not operating in the same environment, with the same capacity. We cannot be this onerous and demanding.”

Overcoming local challenges

Translating ambition into real dollars on the ground will not necessarily be easy, given the barriers that have traditionally kept investors away from the most fragile nations.

Conflict, weak institutions and poor governance raise the possibility of projects not achieving their objectives or, worse, seeing their precious resources squandered. For many, the risk is too much to stomach.

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The Green Climate Fund finds itself walking a tightrope. On the one hand, it has faced criticism over the years for being too cautious. But, on the other, it recently pulled out of a forest protection project in Nicaragua over human rights concerns after a three-year complaints process.

A GCF spokesperson said the fund is now “working to better understand what the real risk is and mitigate that”. In Somalia, for example, that means learning from the World Bank which has worked extensively with local financial institutions, they added.

For Schalatek, the GCF should not be afraid of providing money to what she describes as “climate finance orphans” that have historically been ignored, working more closely in such countries with informal networks of NGOs centred on community interests.

“[The GCF] is a dedicated UN fund and not a bank,” she said, “so it needs to have the appetite to go where no one else is going.”

* This article was amended after publication to attribute the comments in paragraph 21 to a GCF spokesperson.

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It is the first such decision the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has taken since its creation in 2010.

The GCF said on Thursday it had terminated its agreement with project developers after their failure to comply with its rules on environmental and social safeguards resulted in “legal breaches”.

In 2020, the fund committed $64 million to the programme run by the Nicaraguan government and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), which aimed to reduce deforestation in the UNESCO-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves.

The GCF said it had not paid out any funds before terminating its support for the project and no activities had yet taken place.

Community groups warned that the project was going to be carried out in reserves being deforested by a massive invasion of settlers that use violence against Indigenous people with impunity due to weak law enforcement action. They worried that the programme – which was to be overseen by state authorities – would worsen those conflicts and fail to protect the rights of Indigenous communities.

Amaru Ruiz, director of the Nicaraguan organisation Fundación del Río, which supported the affected communities, welcomed the decision by the GCF.

“This sets a precedent globally for the functioning of the fund,” he said. “It is also a recognition of the struggle and resistance of the Indigenous people and Afro-descendant communities of Nicaragua, and it shows that there is a window of opportunity to insist on the fact that climate projects must not violate human rights.”

Fuelling conflicts

The decision concludes a grievance process that has lasted nearly three years since a coalition of local and international NGOs filed a complaint with the GCF. They accused the project of fuelling a violent conflict between Indigenous communities and settlers who were grabbing land to farm cattle and exploit resources, as well as failing to consult local people.

The Bosawas Reserve in Nicaragua has been hit by illegal mining and logging despite protected status. Photo: Rebecca Ore

Independent legal observers have documented repeated attacks against Indigenous people in the area with dozens murdered, kidnapped or raped over the last few years.

An investigation by the GCF’s independent complaint mechanism deemed their concerns justified. It found a series of failures with the project that could “cause or exacerbate” violent conflict. The probe also highlighted a lack of due diligence on conflict risks and human rights violations and the absence of free and informed consultations with Indigenous communities before the project’s approval.

The GCF said it was unaware that the project was not in compliance with its policies at the time of its approval and that new evidence had subsequently been brought to light.

Late-stage consultation

Following the internal investigation, the GCF board agreed last July to suspend the project until it addressed local concerns and fully respected the fund’s policies and procedures. It effectively gave the project developers one last chance to fix the problems.

In an attempt to remedy the issues, CABEI carried out a consultation and engagement process with local communities between August and September. The project developer said a total of 5,550 people participated in 69 events across the region.

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But NGOs criticised it as a “sham”, saying participants were only provided with a brochure in Spanish – a foreign language for many Indigenous people – and were given limited freedom to debate the proposal.

“There’s been an increase in militarisation in the territory,” said Ruiz. “At least eight Indigenous community forest guards were detained after they had denounced the situation of encroachment on their territory”.

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Since 2007, Nicaragua has been ruled by an authoritarian regime led by President Daniel Ortega. His administration has been responsible for “widespread and systematic human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity”, according to the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.

CABEI detailed in a report sent to the GCF in October the steps that had been taken to make the project compliant with its rules. But the fund’s secretariat, its administrative arm, found the issues were not addressed to its satisfaction and decided to terminate its participation in the programme.

It communicated the decision to its board members at a meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, this week.

Lesson for the future

The GCF secretariat says it is now committed to working collaboratively with CABEI and the Nicaraguan government to “develop a clear strategy to conclude the project in an orderly and responsible manner”. That will include informing people on the ground and “managing the expectations” of the potential beneficiaries.

CABEI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Florencia Ortúzar, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), said she hoped the GCF would learn a lesson from this case.

“It is a reminder of the importance of including local communities from the very beginning of project design,” she told Climate Home. “The GCF policies and safeguards exist to prevent those regrettable situations and must be implemented rigorously and consistently.”

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As contributions from traditional donors flatline, the Green Climate Fund’s new leadership is looking to private sources to make the money stretch.

Japan and Norway were the only major donors to announce new contributions at a pledging conference for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in Bonn, Germany, on Thursday. They offered less money – in US dollar terms – than in the previous fundraising round in 2019.

Other potential big contributors like Sweden, Italy and Switzerland, flagged their intention to make pledges in the coming weeks, saying they were not yet ready to do so for internal budgetary reasons.

Germany, the United Kingdom and France made pledges ahead of the conference.

The United States, which did not provide any money in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump, failed to announce any contribution citing “ongoing uncertainty in our budget”.

Australia said it would rejoin “with a modest contribution” to the fund from which it had withdrawn under a previous right-wing government in 2018. The exact figure is expected to be announced before the end of the year.

Mafalda Duarte, the Green Climate Fund’s executive director, hailed the fundraising as a “success” during a press conference. Contributors “recognise that addressing the climate crisis is a shared responsibility and that developing nations are not alone in this fight”, she said.

But campaigners told Climate Home News they were disappointed by the pledges. “It is just unacceptable,” said Erika Lennon, who monitors the GCF for the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). “The climate crisis has only gotten worse and it is ridiculous countries are not meeting that urgency with the level of finance needed”.

Who is contributing?

A critical financing mechanism of the Paris Agreement, the GCF was set up to channel money needed by poor states to meet their targets to reduce carbon emissions and adjust to the effects of climate change.

It is seeking donations to fund its activities between 2024 and 2027, hoping to exceed the $10 billion it raised in the previous fundraising round four years ago.

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Germany is set to become the fund’s biggest donor with a €2 billion ($2.2 billion) pledge – 30% higher in US dollar terms than its previous contribution.

It is followed by the United Kingdom with £1.6 billion ($2 billion) – slightly higher than its 2019 pledge – and France with €1.61 billion ($1.75bn), a 4% cut in US dollars given the less favourable exchange rate.

Once the fund’s biggest contributor, Japan has not raised its financial commitment from four years ago, meaning a nearly 19% decrease in real terms.

The US, which is a co-chair of the GCF’s board, has “strong and steadfast confidence” in the fund, according to a statement read out to the attendees in Bonn on behalf of Alexia Latortue, Assistant Secretary for International Trade and Development.

But no financial commitment is forthcoming. “The US is currently working on its announcement but can’t pledge today given ongoing uncertainty in our budget process,” she added.

Joe Thwaites, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it was a “missed opportunity”, and there were now “great expectations the Biden administration will make a pledge no later than Cop28”.

Lower ambition

A stagnation in overall contributions may force the GCF to rein in its ambitions.

Current and expected pledges put the fund on course to only marginally exceed $10 billion, which was labelled as a “status quo” or “low” scenario in an internal strategy document seen by Climate Home. That is contrasted with a mid-level target of $12.5 billion and a “high” scenario of $15 billion.

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The different levels of ambitions have real-world significance.

In the “status quo” scenario, the bulk of resources would be taken up by projects already in the pipeline – the document says – with new programming only achievable through “significant trade-offs”.

Under a “mid” scenario, the fund plans to extend early warning systems to four more countries, help five million more smallholder farmers and develop climate-friendly food systems and ecosystems.

In the “high” scenario, the fund would help developing countries’ financial systems work towards a green transition and promote clean technology innovation, the document says.

Liane Schalatek from the Heinrich Böll Foundation told Climate Home that this is the “wrong signal” to send with only a few weeks to go before Cop28. “If we are staying at 10 billion it is an effective reduction because of the significant inflation that we have seen since the last fundraising. This is simply not good enough.”

Calls for other money flows

The lack of more commitment from wealthy governments may also deal a blow to the new vision for the fund outlined by Mafalda Duarte less than two weeks ago. The executive director wants the fund to have a capitalisation of $50 billion by 2030, up from $17 billion today.

A key pillar of the plan is the ability to draw in dollars from the private sector. “Public resources will not be enough”, said Duarte on Thursday. “They need to be enablers of a much larger flow of investment.”

Cop28 boss’ appeal to raise climate targets met with total indifference

Major donors are increasingly calling for an expansion to the donor base beyond the countries historically defined as “developed”. Germany pointed the finger, in particular, at the oil-rich Gulf States and China, saying they had a “responsibility” to pitch in with contributions.

“We accept our responsibility and do our fair share,” said federal development minister Svenja Schulze after the conference. “On this basis, we can also ask others to do their fair share too.”

The post Green Climate Fund ambition at risk after ‘disappointing’ pledges appeared first on Climate Home News.

Yesterday, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire announced his nation would give €1.61 billion ($1.75bn) to the organisation’s four-yearly fundraising round.

While that’s slightly more in euros than France gave last time in 2019, the changing exchange rate means it is less in US dollar terms.

With the UK also offering only a slight boost to its funding, pledges so far total 15% more than in 2019. If other contributors match that trend, the GCF will raise $11.5 billion this round, short of the $12.5 billion in its middle ambition scenario.

Big potential donors Japan, Sweden and Norway are yet to pledge. A commitment from the US, which did not give any money in 2019 and only delivered two-thirds of its 2014 pledge, could be game-changing.

Constraining ambition

An internal GCF strategy document seen by Climate Home News lays out what that money means on the ground.

While a middle level of funding could help 30 million smallholder farmers adopt low-emission and climate-resilient practices, a "low" or "status quo" scenario of $10 billion can only help 25 million.

A middle scenario could conserve 30 million hectares while a low one would protect just 26 million. The difference is an area the size of Switzerland.

With "high" funding of $15bn, the figures are 32 million farmers and 32 hectares respectively.

So far, Germany is the only major donor to increase its pledge in line with a "mid" scenario, although not with a "high" level of ambition.

Several nations like Spain chose to announce their GCF pledges at the United Nations General climate ambition summit in New York yesterday.

Barbados's prime minister Mia Mottley told this gathering that the GCF fundraising round was "critical" as "it has still work to bridge the gap in a significant way for many countries".

Simpler and bigger

The summit was also where the GCF's new head Mafalda Duarte unveiled her planned institutional reforms after taking over from unpopular previous leadership.

She said that when the fund was set up in 2010, governments wanted it to provide "simplified access tailored to country needs".

But, she said that it had become "one-size fits all" and "more complex with high transaction costs".

The Portuguese banker said she would overhaul the process for institutions to apply for accreditation to access project funds, a lengthy and bureaucratic process.

This is likely to be welcomed by Mottley. Speaking before Duarte in New York, she said that the GCF "had had problems in terms of the complexity of its governance and that must be addressed".

Egyptian climate negotiator Mohammed Nasr told Climate Home that simplifying this process "has been a continuous request by several developing countries, as we always hear complaints on how complex the process is".

Duarte said she wanted to "significantly accelerate" the process of reviewing and approving projects.

50 by 30

She added that she wanted the fund to have a capitalisation of $50 billion by 2030, up from $17 billion today.

To reach this target, she said would focus more on bigger projects, covering whole countries, regions and sectors and maximising private sector investments.

Liane Schalatek, who monitors the GCF for the Heinrich Böll foundation, told Climate Home that, unless governments become far more generous, reaching this target would involve shifting emphasis from grants to loans.

She said she had "serious concerns" about how much opportunity local communities and civil society will get to shape the big projects that Duarte envisions.

This article was corrected on 21/9/23 to correct the fund's current capitalisation from $7 billion to $17 billion and to say that the US has delivered two-thirds of its 2014 promise, not one-third.

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An investigation by the fund’s independent complaint mechanism found a series of failures that could “cause or exacerbate” violent conflict between indigenous people and settlers.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) will not provide any money to the project managed by Nicaragua’s authoritarian regime until it fully complies with the fund’s rules, its board ruled at an annual meeting in July.

This marks the first time the GCF board puts on hold an approved project over human rights concerns. The decision comes at the end of a process that took more than two years since a coalition of local and international NGOs filed a complaint.

But the fund stopped short of entirely scrapping the project, as local activists requested. The Nicaraguan government now has the chance to make it compliant with the GCF rules.

A GCF spokesperson told Climate Home that the matter “has received, and continues to receive, its highest attention”. They added that the fund reserves the right to exercise its legal rights in case the issues are not addressed to its satisfaction.

Human rights abuses

The project, which was approved in 2020, aims to reduce deforestation in the Unesco-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves in the Caribbean Region of Nicaragua.

The region is gripped by an increasingly violent conflict between indigenous communities and settlers, who are grabbing land to exploit the forest’s resources and farm cattle.

Independent legal observers have documented repeated attacks against indigenous people in the area with dozens of people murdered, kidnapped or raped over the last few years.

A report by the internal redress body said the complainants’ concerns that the project may fuel further violence were justified.

It also found the project had been approved even though it did not comply with a series of GCF’s policies and procedures. Investigators highlighted the failure to carry out due diligence on conflict risks and human rights violations and to conduct free and informed consultations with indigenous communities before the project’s approval.

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These failures “may adversely impact the complainant(s) and other indigenous communities in the project areas”, the report said.

A GCF spokesperson said the fund was not aware that the development of the funding proposal was not in compliance with its policies at the time of the project’s approval. New evidence brought to light subsequently through the independent investigation showed that some of the information presented by the project proponent, as part of its due diligence, was not accurate or correct, the GCF added.

Bittersweet ruling

Nearly a year after the investigation was concluded, the board has now requested the GCF Secretariat, its administrative arm, to put the project on hold until it respects the fund’s policies and procedures.

The ruling’s summary does not specify if all of the issues raised through the complaint mechanism will need to be addressed.

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The result is bittersweet for the groups behind the complaint.

Florencia Ortuzar, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), says that, even if the outcome may ultimately be positive, the decision gives no clarity as to what process the Secretariat will follow. “We do not know which specific issues of non-compliance will be looked into nor how they will aim to fix them”, she added.

Calls for cancellation

Amaru Ruiz, director of the Nicaraguan organisation Fundación del Río, says the ruling validates indigenous populations’ concerns, but he believes the programme should be axed rather than simply improved.

“A project that violates human rights, consultation processes and a series of procedures should be cancelled”, he told Climate Home News. “The problems are substantive, not just formalities”.

The GCF Secretariat will now need to work with the Nicaraguan state apparatus and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, its funding partner on the project, to resolve the issues.

The government of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega has been accused of widespread human rights abuses. Photo: Presidencia El Salvador

The government led since 2007 by president Daniel Ortega has been responsible for “widespread and systematic human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity”, according to the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.

Ruiz claims the Nicaraguan regime does not have the political goodwill to play within the rules. “It is only after the financial resources, so I believe it will try to show on paper that the project is now compliant even if that is not the case”, he added. “We will see if the Secretariat acknowledges its previous mistake and will make sure regulations are properly applied now”.

Lack of transparency

The complainants’ worries are compounded by what they described as a lack of transparency during the lengthy redress mechanism.

Investigators concluded the reviews in August 2022 but their findings have only been made public now following the completion of the complaint process. The GCF’s board members discussed the report during three separate meetings before making a final decision nearly two weeks ago.

The discussions happened behind closed doors and public updates on the case were limited. This prompted some complainants to criticise the process as “unfair, non-transparent and deficient”.

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Aida’s Ortuzar told Climate Home News “this is especially concerning as it is the first time a complaint reached the board and it sets a worrisome precedent”.

The report by the redress mechanism also raised concerns over the way the GCF relies heavily on information submitted by project proponents to make decisions on whether to fund them.

“This leaves the GCF extremely vulnerable to policy and safeguards non-compliance that can result in huge reputational risks to the fund”, the investigators wrote.

The article was updated on 27/07 to include comments from the Green Climate Fund received after publication

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As the American co-chair of the board Victoria Gunderson banged her gavel down yesterday, the boardroom in South Korea applauded and whooped. Behind Gunderson, two advisers to the Pakistani co-chair Naumann Bhatti high-fived.

Board members described the process as characterised by “sleepless nights and hunger pains”, as the board’s twelve developing country and twelve developed country members took a year to negotiate the GCF’s plan for 2024 to 2027.

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Developed country governments pushed for the fund to attract more private finance, rather than money from their taxpayers, and for the most vulnerable countries and communities to be prioritised.

Developing country governments called for wealthy governments to provide more public money, while China pushed back against distinctions between more and less vulnerable developing countries.

The Green Climate Fund was set up in 2010 to distribute money from wealthy countries to climate projects in low and middle-income countries. It has spent around $12bn so far.

Need more money

The GCF gets most of its funding from replenishment rounds when developed governments pledge to give it money for the next period.

These happen every four years and the latest one is happening now, ahead of a pledging conference in the German city of Bonn in October.

African negotiators raised concerns that the GCF is planning based on an assumption that there will not be a major increase in its funding, despite the worsening climate crisis across the world.

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The strategy assumes the GCF will be able to give out about $2-3 billion a year, compared to around $2 billion in the previous three years.

This would be somewhere between what the GCF describes as a “status quo” and “middling” scenario.

A “high scenario” would involve about $3.75 billion a year, according to internal GCF documents seen by Climate Home.

Egypt’s board member Wael Abdoulmagd told the board meeting: “If we are going to successfully contend with the climate crisis, it is imperative that the GCF be in the position to keep up with the times”.

He added that the amount of help the GCF is planning to give out is “stagnant” and said that “raises a lot of concern”.

South Africa’s Tlou Emmanuel Ramaru said that the GCF needs to raise ambition and that, in this “decade of implementation”, this “has to be really demonstrated…by the increase of the programming target”.

Private sector

But Sweden’s Leif Holmberg said that “the finance that is flowing in from the donors will not be enough to combat climate change”.

Because of this, he told the board that the GCF should “play a catalytical role” in mobilising “both public and private capital”.

Developed countries wanted a greater focus on private capital, which they called “greening of the financial system” in the strategy.

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It appeared as one of five key objectives in an early draft but was dropped from the final version.

Switzerland’s Stefan Denzler said this had been “one of the sacrifices made on the altar of compromise”.

Last year, wealthy governments pressured the GCF to seek more funds from rich individuals and big businesses, taking the burden away from governments.

Who pays in and out?

Developed governments have pushed too for bigger and wealthier developing country governments to join them in funding the GCF.

On a recent visit to China, US finance minister Janet Yellen said: “I believe that if China were to support existing multilateral climate institutions like the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds alongside us and other donor governments, we could have a greater impact than we do today.”

The GCF’s governing instrument says that all developing countries are eligible for funds, although money to adapt to climate change should be prioritised for countries “that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including [least developed countries], [small island developing states] and African States”.

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Although there was not a serious push to change this, developed countries pushed for prioritising funds. The UK’s Sarah Metcalf said more funds should go to “fragile and conflict-affected states who struggle to access funds despite being on the frontline of the climate crisis” and called for a “targeted approach” on adaptation.

Switzerland’s Stefan Denzler thanked South Korea for hosting the board meeting, adding: “I’m amazed again by not only the friendly people, professional people in this country but also the level of development achieved – sophisticated facilities, hospitality, the general level of development in a country which according to the UNFCCC [the UN’s climate body] is a developing country”.

The UNFCCC’s list of developed and developing countries was drawn up in 1992 and South Korea’s average wealth has tripled since then.

But China’s representative Yingzhi Liu argued back that “all developing countries are eligible to access GCF resources. This is clearly stipulated in the GCF governing agreement and developing countries should not be differentiated”.

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The Green Climate Fund was set up in 2010 to distribute money from wealthy countries to climate projects in low and middle-income countries. It has spent around $12bn so far funding climate projects but has recently warned of cutbacks because of a lack of resources.

The pledge is a third more than Germany’s previous contribution to the fund. Once confirmed, the money will support climate investment during the 2024-2027 period.

Scholz’s pledge at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin today sets the bar for other wealthy nations ahead of the fund’s regular pledging conference in the German city of Bonn in October.

“I appeal to the many traditional and possible new donors – let us continue this success story it is more important than ever before”, Scholz said.

#info: starting at +/- 14.30 pm CEST you can watch the speech by the Federal Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz at the 14th #Petersberg Climate Dialogue here live. https://t.co/QqyFgwtyU7

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) May 3, 2023

Austria, the only other major nation to make a pledge so far, upped their contribution by just under a quarter to €0.16 billion ($0.18 billion).

Liane Schalatek, who monitors the GCF as a representative of civil society, told Climate Home it was “great that there is an upward trajectory, we would have hoped for a bit more than the [one-third] increase, given the needs and the accelerated phase needed in taking climate action, as well as the importance of the GCF”.

Joe Thwaites, a climate finance campaigner at the National Resources Defense Council, said it was a “critical signal of support to developing countries” and “sets a benchmark for other countries who also need to step up with increased contributions”.

“Mid” ambition

If all governments increase their contributions by a third, and there are no new contributors like the USA and Australia, the fund will have around $13 billion to spend between 2024 and 2027.

An internal strategy document prepared for the GCF board, and seen by Climate Home, labels $12.5 billion as a middling level of money compared with a “status quo” scenario of $10 billion and a “high” scenario of $15 billion.

Proud to hear @Bundeskanzler announce that will be increasing our contribution to the next replenishment round of @theGCF to 2Bn (1.5 Bn last round – a 33% increase). We look to all other wealthy nations to join us in similarly ambitious replenishments#climatefinance pic.twitter.com/cK0M46kEpq

— Jennifer Morgan (@climatemorgan) May 3, 2023

Reaching a “mid” scenario instead of the “status quo” means the fund can do more to ensure that everyone on earth is protected by early warning systems and do more to help food systems and ecosystems green transition.

But only in the “high” scenario, the fund would have enough resources to do more to help developing countries’ financial systems work towards a green transition or to promote clean technology innovation, the document says.

First big spender

Germany is historically one of the fund’s biggest donors alongside the UK, France and Japan, who have yet to make their latest pledges.

The USA may make a pledge but it will need the approval of Congress, which is partly controlled by the opposition Republican Party, approval to fulfill its pledge.

President Biden recently promised $1 billion to the fund. But this is only a partial fulfillment of the outstanding $2 billion which President Barack Obama promised before Donald Trump later reneged on.

This article was edited to clarify that Obama pledged $3 billion but, as he delivered $1 billion, the outstanding amount is $2 billion and to say that Congressional approval is required for delivering funds to the GCF but not for promising funds.

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Archi Rastogi, lead author of the independent report, said there were clear risks in implementing climate-related projects such as new infrastructure. But projects could also result in maladaptation, where instead of helping communities adapt to climate change they actually make the effects worse, and may have more complex fiduciary risks.

Not recognising or properly managing these made the organisation too cautious, he said. 

Developing nations have long pushed the fund to take more risks and provide grants to smaller, more innovative schemes that other funds won’t back.

In 2016, the GCF board agreed that it should “take on risks that other funds/institutions are not able or are willing to take” and adopt a “high level of risk appetite”.

Projects gone wrong

The Green Climate Fund was set up in 2010 and formed part of a compact between poor and rich countries that was the basis for the Paris climate agreement in 2015. It has spent around $12bn so far funding climate projects around the world.

But although the latest review accused it of being overly cautious, some of the fund’s investments have been controversial and former employees have raised concerns about the GCF’s project vetting.

In 2021, concerns were raised about a $66 million flood management project financed by the GCF in Samoa, after river walls failed to protect a hotel from flash flooding. 

The fund was also recently in the spotlight for greenlighting a Nicaraguan project which Indigenous people have accused of exacerbating violence with settlers invading their land. At its latest meeting, the board deferred a decision on the complaint until July. 

Speaking at the board meeting, outgoing executive director Yannick Glemarec accepted that the GCF was responsible for projects that it was financing along with other organisations, saying that, when it comes to a violation of Indigenous people “it’s irrelevant where the money comes from”.  

But he said the GCF was a very large international financial institution with “maybe a third” the level of risk of a social impact investor, and suggested it could take on more. “It’s extremely important to ensure that your risk management system will keep pace with your ambitions,” he said.  

Notable progress

The review team analysed reams of documents, carried out case studies and interviewed more than 700 people around the world, and found the GCF had made “notable progress” in its governance procedures since 2020.  

It found no “insurmountable” challenges in the way the GCF is run, saying the organisation managed to effectively carry out its key roles of accrediting institutions to apply for funds and approving funding proposals. 

Andreas Reumann, head of the GCF’s independent evaluation unit, said it shows that the fund plays a “central and successful role in global efforts to combat climate change” and has responded positively to recommendations for improvement.  

This paints a more favourable picture than a 2021 staff survey which found that 40% of staff had a negative impression of senior management while just 24% had a good impression. Some people within the organisation have also been critical of the way the board responds to feedback.

The organisation has just appointed Mafalda Duarte as its new head.

Unrealistic expectations

The review helped counteract a “persistent false narrative” about the fund’s governance caused in part by unrealistically high expectations of what it would do, said Liane Schalatek, a civil society observer on the GCF board.

Developing countries had anticipated it would provide a large amount of readily available grant funding, while developed countries had wanted it to massively leverage private sector funding and thereby reduce their own financial liabilities. “Those have obviously not come to pass.”  

However, the review said the time had come to “clarify the GCF’s vision” over how it balances the urgency of the climate crisis and the long-term need to build climate finance capacity, and the extent to which it takes a direct and strategic role.  

It concluded the fund should do more to “catalyse” climate finance by, for example, investing in projects that have bigger impacts down the line even if the projects themselves run at a loss. 

But Schalatek warned that it should continue to be a core source of public climate funds, “with a focus on simplified and enhanced direct access and ensuring that affected communities and people through devolved financing have more of a say on how GCF funding support can better address their needs and priorities”.  

Efficiency compromised

A core principle of the GCF is to give developed and developing countries an equal say in board meetings, unlike donor-driven funds.  

The review says this novel governance structure “brings legitimacy but compromises efficiency”, especially given the fund’s proximity to UN climate change politics, posing challenges in setting a strategic vision and key policies.  

Rastogi suggested that more informal meetings between board members would help improve relationships and smooth negotiations.

The review also shows that less money went to adaptation projects than mitigation. With under 7% of global climate finance currently directed towards adaptation, it says the GCF’s impact on this topic is much more important than it is for mitigation, and hints that the board should reconsider how it balances these two key areas of climate action.  

Schalatek said civil society has pushed unsuccessfully for a more even split for some time. “In terms of adaptation it’s barely doing what’s under its mandate,” she said. 

GCF respond

In its formal response to the review, the GCF’s secretariat said the findings and recommendations “broadly resonate” with its experience and would incorporate most of them into its decision-making, management, operations, strategies, budgets and practices. It has, for example, already begun to update its risk register, which the review had found gaps in. 

However, it only “partially” agreed with the recommendation to reconsider civil society’s role in its work. Schalatek said it was difficult for observers to have a meaningful influence on GCF policies and the cost of travelling to board meetings was prohibitive for some developing country representatives. The secretariat countered that some of these issues had previously been considered. 

The review will inform the GCF’s next strategic plan, which is expected to be approved in the summer, and will also be part of negotiations over how much countries will commit to funding it over the next four years.

Going into the review, Rastogi said he was “a bit scared” of what he might find. But he was generally pleased with how the GCF was being governed and noted that all similar institutions go through a teething period in their first few years. “It’s going to get stronger,” he said, while its new executive director would bring in “new blood and a fresh perspective”. 

This article was amended on 3 May 2023 to correct the figure on how much the GCF has spent so far. It originally incorrectly said $20 billion but the real figure is $12 billion.

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In June 2021, a coalition of local groups and international NGOs complained to the fund about a $117 million project to reduce deforestation in the Unesco-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves in the Caribbean Region of Nicaragua.  

The project, which was approved in 2020, aims to reduce extensive grazing and introduce agroforestry systems such as cocoa. 

The region is home to 80% of Nicaragua’s forests and most of its indigenous populations. But it is gripped by increasingly violent conflict between indigenous communities and settlers, who are grabbing land to exploit the forest’s resources and farm cattle. 

Over the past week, the Center for Legal Assistance to Indigenous Peoples reported two attacks against communities in the project area that led to the death of at least five people.

The complainants claimed the project would exacerbate the violence. They argue it was approved without proper due diligence or their free, prior and informed consent. 

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This is the first time a complaint case reaches the board of the UN’s flagship climate fund. Civil society observers argue the board’s handling of the case will set a precedent for future complaints.

Behind closed doors

The findings of the investigation have not been made public because of the sensitive nature of the case and complainants have remained anonymous because of the risk of retaliation.

However, excerpts from a draft report, seen by Climate Home News, shows that the redress body found the project clearly violated several GCF safeguards and procedures, including the lack of consultation with indigenous groups. It agreed that the project may exacerbate conflict.

Board members discussed the report behind closed doors this week during a meeting in Songdo, South Korea. The meeting closed on Thursday without a public update on the case.

Liane Schalatek, a civil society observer at the GCF, told Climate Home the closed door discussion was meant to protect the complainants and the integrity of the process. “It is now used to divert the latter and harm the former…and that is a tragedy,” she said.

Escalating violence

Florencia Ortúzar, a Chilean lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (Aida), a regional NGO, supported the complainants to bring their case to the GCF. 

Ortúzar said it was “unfortunate and infuriating” that the issue had not be given priority during the four-day long meeting. A delayed outcome means affected communities may have to wait until the next meeting in July for a decision – nearly a year after the investigation’s findings were finalised.

“And in the meantime violence escalates,” Ortúzar told Climate Home.

In a letter to the GCF board, and writing on behalf of 15 indigenous communities, the Center for Justice and International Law said the recent attacks were carried out by a group of 60 armed settlers who burnt down 50 homes. It urged the GCF to publish the final report on the case.

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In its draft recommendations, the redress body urged the board to implement robust due diligence on human rights and independent monitoring as a condition for the project to go ahead.

While the body hasn’t got the power to advise the cancellation of the project, board members could decide to scrap it – the complainants’ preferred outcome.

Credibility test

Amaru Ruiz, director of Nicaraguan organisation Fundación del Río, who supports the affected communities, said the GCF’s credibility was on the line. 

He said the fund should “completely reassess the approval of the project” or risks “legitimising environmental destruction and the process of forest invasion”.

“What is at stake is not the credibility of the [Nicaragua] regime, but the credibility of the fund,” he said.

“This not just the first major grievance case, it is a test case – for the solidity and fairness of the fund’s complaints procedures, but also for the board’s compliance with guidelines it adopted for its own conduct in such cases,” said Schalatek.

“Unfortunately, it appears that the board is falling short in this first test,” she said, adding that indigenous groups still haven’t been able to see the final findings.

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Human rights abuses

Ortúzar, of Aida, said indigenous people have no confidence in the ability of the Nicaragua government and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), which is providing co-funding, to deliver the project under strict monitoring conditions.

She said the government had expelled UN staff and dissolved close to 200 NGOs to escape scrutiny and it was unlikely to accept monitoring from any third party.

Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council found that widespread human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity are being committed against civilians by the Nicaragua government for political reasons. 

Human rights experts said this was a product of the deliberate dismantling of democratic institutions and the destruction of civic space.  

A report by the Heinrich Böll Foundation found that Cabei’s operations lacked transparency and that it was funding president Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime. 

A Green Climate Fund spokesman told Climate Home: “The GCF has robust procedures to address any complaints made in relation to projects, including safeguards to protect complainants. We cannot comment on this case since the matter remains confidential.”

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Mafalda Duarte, a Portuguese national, joins the Green Climate Fund from the Washington-based Climate Investment Funds (CIF), where she served as CEO since 2014.

She previously held senior positions at the African Development Bank and the World Bank, working on climate finance.

Duarte is replacing French UN veteran Yannick Glemarec, who served a four-year term at the helm of the GCF and is due to step down on 2 April. In 2019, Duarte was among the contenders to head the GCF but lost out to a shortlist of three white men.

The appointment comes as the board is faced with its first complaint case after indigenous peoples in Nicaragua alleged that a project to reduce deforestation is exacerbating violence with settlers invading their land.

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The Green Climate Fund was established in 2010 as the main investment arm to support developing countries deliver on the Paris Agreement goals.

Countries have pledged $20.3 billion to the fund since its creation. Duarte will manage a portfolio of over 200 projects and oversee the next replenishment phase which will culminate in a pledging conference later this year.

Victoria Gunderson, co-chair of the GCF board, said the board was “impressed with her vision and drive” and that her experience in managing climate funds will be crucial in helping the GCF catalyse more funding.

Gunderson added that the recruitment process had been “highly competitive”.

The shortlist of candidates was not made public. But Climate Home News understands that Duarte beat Woochong Um, a Korean national and the managing director general of the Asian Development Bank, and Anthony Nyong, a senior director at the Global Center on Adaptation on secondment from the African Development Bank.

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In a statement following the announcement, Duarte said she was “honoured” to have been selected and looked forward to “accelerate the delivery of critically needed climate investments”.

“Developing countries are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. They can count on my resolve to support their climate aspirations in pursuit of a better climate future for all,” she said.

Henry Gonzalez, the fund’s deputy executive director, will serve as interim director until Duarte takes over.

Liane Schalatek, a civil society observer on the GCF board, welcomed having “an experienced climate finance leader” heading the fund.

But she told Climate Home that Duarte will need to adjust “to the very special role and accountability of the GCF as the core of the UN Climate Change financial mechanisms”, which she said is “very different” from the modus operandi of multilateral development banks.

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At the fund’s board meeting in Songdo, South Korea, this week, the fund’s redress mechanism is facing its first test.

Violence and human rights abuses

For the first time, board members will discuss a complaint brought by a coalition of local groups and international NGOs about a $117m project to reduce deforestation in the Unesco-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves, located in the Caribbean Region of Nicaragua.

The region is home to 80% of Nicaragua’s forests and the majority of its indigenous populations. Approved in 2020, the project aims to reduce extensive grazing and introduce agroforestry systems such as cocoa.

However, the region is gripped by increasingly violent conflict between indigenous communities and settlers, who are grabbing land to exploit the forest’s resources and farm cattle.

This week, the Center for Legal Assistance to Indigenous Peoples reported that a group of armed settlers attacked a community and killed up to seven people. Five people, including two children, from a separate community were allegedly kidnapped.

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Complainants, which remain anonymous because of the risk of retaliation, allege that the project will exacerbate the violence. They say it was approved without their free, prior and informed consent or proper due diligence.

The conclusions of an investigation by the GCF’s Independent Redress Mechanism (IRM) have not been made public. But excerpts from a draft report, seen by Climate Home, give right to the complainants.

It finds that the project clearly violates several GCF safeguards and procedures, including the lack of consultation with indigenous groups, and that the project may exacerbate conflict.

The draft report cited ongoing human rights violations in the project area, including the massacre of indigenous peoples.

Setting a precedent

Florencia Ortúzar, a Chilean lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (Aida), a regional NGO, supported the complainants bring their case to the GCF.

How the board deals with the case “is going to set a very important precedent” for future complaint cases, she told Climate Home.

Because of the sensitivity of the case, the board’s discussions will be held behind closed doors. The IRM  is expected to recommend robust due diligence on human rights and independent monitoring is carried out before the project is implemented.

But Ortúzar said complainants would prefer the project to be scrapped. They have “no confidence” in the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), which is co-financing the project, nor the Nicaraguan government, she said.

Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council found that widespread human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity are being committed against civilians by the Nicaragua government for political reasons.

Human rights experts said this was a product of the deliberate dismantling of democratic institutions and the destruction of civic space.

The post Mafalda Duarte named as next chief of UN climate fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

Developed countries nominated the US Treasury’s Victoria Gunderson to jointly lead the UN flagship climate fund’s deliberations in 2023. These appointments are typically approved without discussion.

On behalf of African board members, Kenyan environment official Pacifica Ogola raised an official objection. The US has contributed just $1 billion to the fund in its 12-year history, compared to $9bn from EU countries and $3bn from Japan. A further $2bn pledged under former president Barack Obama was never delivered. His successors Donald Trump and Joe Biden have not paid in a cent.

Ogola stressed, in a letter dated 16 January, rich countries’ responsibility to inject money into the GCF and called for better enforcement of commitments. Approving Gunderson’s role must not “normalise the situation” of non-payers holding sway over decisions, she argued.

The outgoing co-chairs persuaded African members not to veto the appointment, on the assurance that the board would discuss their broader concerns.

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In March 2022, GCF executive director Yannick Glemarec warned that without more resources, the fund would have to tightly ration support for carbon-cutting projects in the developing world. “Some turn-off will be unavoidable,” he said. “It’s one of my fears.”

US outreach

One week after African members raised the objection, US treasury secretary Janet Yellen visited a project in Zambia helping farmers adapt to the climate crisis.

“The project we are visiting today helps small-scale farmers…It’s funded by the Green Climate Fund, which the United States is proud to be a part of.”

Read US Treasury @SecYellen‘s remarks during her visit to the GCF-@UNDPZambia #climateaction project: https://t.co/YIZF9yT910 pic.twitter.com/Xf2sUwT5vr

— Green Climate Fund (@theGCF) January 26, 2023

Yellen told reporters: “It’s funded by the Green Climate Fund, which the United States is proud to be a part of. We are committed to making sure that the Fund has sufficient resources to carry on this important work.”

The GCF is hosting its next regular request for donations at the end of 2023.

In December 2022, Congress did not earmark any finance for the GCF in the government’s 2023 fiscal year budget. There is enough flexibility in the spending bill that a contribution is still possible – but a Republican majority in the House of Representatives is expected to resist.

Liane Schalatek speaks for civil society as an observer to the GCF board. “The objection highlights the expectation that is placed on a developed country chairing during replenishment to dig deep with their own contributions,” she said.

During the GCF’s last request for donations in 2019, the UK as board co-chair made the largest pledge. But “it is doubtful that the US can replicate the UK example”, Schalatek added.

While the UK promised the most money, it has fallen behind on its payment plan. In October 2022, The Wire reported that three climate projects had to be postponed after the UK failed to pay $288m it had promised by the end of September 2022.

This article was updated on February 2nd to add the final sentence

The post Africa objects to US chairing UN climate fund, citing unpaid $2bn appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UK and US have together failed to hand over more than $2bn of promised money to the fund, which has responded by putting three projects on hold.

At the fund’s October board meeting, the US led wealthy countries in pressuring the fund’s staff to target private sector donations, despite the secretariat expressing doubts about this strategy.

The Green Climate Fund was set up in 2010. Based in South Korea, it receives voluntary donations from rich nations and distributes this money to projects which help low and middle income countries cut emissions or adapt to climate change.

In 2014, then US president Barack Obama promised the fund $3bn but only handed over $1bn before the end of his term. His successor Donald Trump did not give any money to the GCF and, so far, neither has Joe Biden. With Republicans expected to take over Congress on 8 November, it’s unlikely that the US will deliver this money in the next two years if at all.

In 2019, Australia's then prime minister Scott Morrison said he would not "tip money into that big climate fund” and the country has not contributed since. A new government took over in May on a promise to do more on climate change but, after dodging the question on the campaign trail, it has yet to rejoin the fund.

These failures have led to cutbacks. In March, the GCF's head Yannick Glemarec told a board meeting: "Regarding the need for more mitigation [carbon-cutting] projects, this will very much depend on whether or not we are able to mobilise some additional resources.”

UK freeze

At the latest board meeting, the fund announced it would postpone three projects because the UK government had failed to deliver $288m due in September. A GCF spokesperson refused to say what these projects were. GCF deputy head Henry Gonzalez said two were in the world's least developed countries (LDCs).

The UK's board member Sarah Metcalf said this non-payment was because of "pressures on the UK [overseas development aid] budget as a result of ongoing crises". Blaming the Covid-19 pandemic, the UK cut its aid target from 0.7% of national income to 0.5% in 2021. This "temporary measure" has yet to be reversed.

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Facing cutbacks, the fund's secretariat put together a research paper on alternative sources of funding for the 2024-2027 period. They looked at whether to seek donations from big businesses, rich people, governments through the International Monetary Fund's special drawing rights and from optional levies on purchases like airline tickets.

However, the paper's authors found there would be "significant challenges" to accepting private sector donations. From speaking to philanthropic foundations in 2021, the GCF had found that they were unwilling to cede control over funding decisions.

The GCF's board, made up of an equal number of government representatives from developed and developing countries, decides how to allocate funds. Donors do not have a say.

The authors said the GCF would have to spend about 10% of its money on fundraising, that competition for funds is "fierce" and the GCF could be accused of "crowding out other smaller organizations". It would also need more legal resources to comply with tax and money laundering regulations.

'Hand on the steering wheel'

After the GCF's director of external affairs Oyun Sanjaasuren presented the findings to the board, the US's Victoria Gunderson hit back.

"I'm often known for my candour so I'll be quite candid," she said. "This is not exactly the paper and the tone that I was anticipating to receive so I would have enjoyed or welcomed seeing more options and solutions and multiple paths rather than a series of obstacles without opportunities written behind it."

Board members from the Netherlands and France also urged the GCF to keep looking into this strategy. Norway's climate envoy and board member Hans Olav Ibrekk said: "Its quite clear that public sources will not be enough so we need to look at alternative sources."

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However, Ibrekk agreed that private donors would try to influence spending. " If you give money to the GCF, you would like to have your hand on the steering wheel, you will not sit in the trunk,” he said.

Titi Akosa, a Nigerian environmentalist and official board observer, told the meeting: "Developed countries should remain the primary source of funding for the GCF. Exploring alternative sources of finance should not be used as a diversion from the core responsibility and obligation of developed countries to provide finance directly to the GCF.”

The GCF will be seeking contributions from governments next year ahead of the 2024-2027 spending period.

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An application from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to partner with the GCF was only accepted after the bank set a target to reach net zero emissions in its lending portfolio by 2050.

Representatives of rich countries had refused to accredit the bank in October, meaning it could not apply for project funding from the GCF, the UN’s flagship fund. One month later, at Cop26, DBSA committed to net zero by 2050 and at this week’s board meeting its application was unanimously approved.

France’s board member Stephane Cieniewski said the net zero commitment “was instrumental in securing the re-accreditation” while Sweden’s Lars Roth noted the pledge “with satisfaction”.

Spain’s Marta Mucas Alcantara also welcomed DBSA’s pledge and Switzerland’s Stefan Denzler said this commitment “could motivate others to follow”.

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But developing country representatives said it was unfair to hold institutions in rich and poor countries to the same standards.

Egypt’s Wael Aboulmagd said: “I was hoping we wouldn’t have this conversation. We had this discussion before… I’m worried that we’re legislating on the fly, on the go.”

It is not official GCF policy to make accreditation conditional on a net zero target. “I worry that we are applying a precedent,” said Aboulmagd. “I hear the talk about net zero. That’s good. Let’s put it in the policies. But until then, we cannot create new conditions and impose them on entities on grounds that are not in the policies.”

Pakistan’s Nauman Bashir Bhatti agreed, adding: “I’m not sure that we have an agreed context of net zero here on this board.”

South African official Zaheer Fakir tweeted that developed countries had “abuse[d] their seats…to impose conditionalities on the reaccreditation of the DBSA that are not approved policies of the fund”. He accused them of “much grandstanding”.

The GCF was set up at UN climate talks in 2010 as a financing vehicle for developing countries’ climate action. It has since allocated more than $10bn to projects designed to cut emissions and support vulnerable communities cope with climate impacts.

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Green Climate Fund (GCF) executive director Yannick Glemarec told a board meeting yesterday: “Regarding the need for more mitigation projects, this will very much depend on whether or not we are able to mobilise some additional resources”.

Without that additional funding, “some turn-off will be unavoidable,” he said. “It’s one of my fears.”

Campaigners blamed the US for these potential cut-backs. Action Aid’s policy director Brandon Wu told Climate Home News: “If the GCF needs to limit its operations in the near future due to lack of funding, it’s hard to find any single country more at fault than the United States”.

“By failing to meet its responsibilities to fund the GCF,” Wu said, “the US is failing frontline communities in developing countries and it is also undermining the prospects of global climate cooperation more broadly.”

The US owes the GCF $2 billion. In 2014, then president Barack Obama promised the fund $3bn but only handed over $1bn before the end of his term. His successor Donald Trump did not give any money to the GCF and, so far, neither has Joe Biden.

Earlier this month, the US Congress approved a 2022 spending bill with a mere $1bn for international climate finance and no money for the GCF. Biden had requested Congress to approve $1.25bn for the fund but negotiations brought the amount down to zero.

Comparison of proposals for US international climate finance in 2022 (Source: Joe Thwaites/World Resources Institute)

On Monday, the Biden administration published its request to Congress for the 2023 fiscal year, which includes $1.6bn for the GCF. Erika Lennon, a senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law who attends GCF board meetings on behalf of civil society, told Climate Home this was a "paltry" amount.

Lennon reiterated campaigners' demand for the White House to deliver $8bn to the GCF. That would cover its $2bn debt plus $6bn to bring the US in step with other donor countries, which doubled their contributions to the fund during its first replenishment in 2019. Collectively, EU member states have delivered more than $9bn to the fund.

If Biden is to ensure that at least $1.6bn is allocated to the GCF in 2023, it will need to make it a funding priority, World Resources Institute's climate finance analyst Joe Thwaites said.

Republicans have previously blocked GCF funding and securing Congress' backing won't be easy. Commenting on Biden's $1.6bn request, Republican representative Lance Gooden tweeted "Biden will give handouts to the green industry while Americans are stuck paying $4 [a gallon] at the gas pump".

Last year, representative Lauren Boebert tweeted: "Democrats have no problem wasting and spending as much of your tax dollars as possible on their liberal wishlist".

$3.2 billion to a Clean Technology Fund.
$1.6 billion to a Green Climate Fund.
$1.45 billion for environmental justice.
$900 million to research climate change.

Joe Biden will give handouts to the green industry while Americans are stuck paying $4 at the gas pump.

— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) March 29, 2022

Thwaites said the US could fund the GCF through flexible funds like the state department's economic support fund, which wouldn't require Congress approval. This is the vehicle Obama used to make two $500m payments in 2016 and 2017. In 2022, the fund's budget was increased by $1bn.

"However," Thwaites warned, "this account is used to fund many different overseas programmes and so it depends on how many other claims there are on these resources and whether the administration will prioritise funding the GCF".

The GCF was set up at UN climate talks in 2010 as a financing vehicle for developing countries' climate action. It has since allocated more than $10bn to projects designed to cut emissions and support vulnerable communities cope with climate impacts.

Recent carbon-cutting projects include funding for solar panels in Africa's Sahel region, clean ways of cooking in Nepal and light rail transit in Costa Rica's capital San José.

At the urging of developing countries, the GCF is trying to assign more of its funding to adapting to climate change rather than reducing emissions.

While it is aiming for a 50:50 split, projects to reduce emissions have so far received 62% of the funding in nominal terms and 52% on a grant-equivalent basis.

This article was amended on 29/3/22 to clarify that Lauren Boebert was commenting on the 2022 GCF funding proposal not the 2023 proposal. Lance Gooden's comments on the 2023 proposal were added in.

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It was close to 4am on Friday in the Green Climate Fund’s South Korean headquarters when board members brought the four-day virtual meeting to a close.

Besides the usual delays and procedural wrangling, discussions became heated when board members were asked to consider whether to renew the GCF’s partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).

At the heart of the issue was a disagreement between members from large emerging economies and richer nations over whether decarbonisation conditions should be imposed on organisations from developing nations seeking to access funding.

The GCF was created to help poor countries curb their emissions and cope with climate impacts. It depends on agencies like DBSA to deliver projects in poor nations.

Some board members from rich countries added as a condition for DBSA to be re-accredited that the bank adopts a 2050 net zero emission target across its portfolio, and an intermediate 2030 target, within one year of the accreditation being approved.

The bank, which currently has no fossil fuel exclusion policy, would have to demonstrate how it is shifting its loans and investments away from carbon-intensive activities.

But the move was strongly resisted by developing country members who accused developed nations of imposing a carbon-cutting pathway on poorer ones.

Wael Aboul-Magd, of Egypt, told the board the 2050 net zero goal was “a global aspiration, not a prescription to every country, and particularly not for developing countries”.

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Board member Ayman Shasly, of Saudi Arabia, described the condition as “blackmail,” adding that the GCF was being “manipulated by [developed countries] pushing their own agenda onto the fund”.

Yan Ren, of China, agreed with Shasly that the condition did not respect the Paris Agreement’s equity principle of common but differentiated responsibilities that nations that became rich from burning fossil fuels should cut their emissions faster to allow poorer ones to develop.

“We should not impose conditions on developing countries to force them to achieve certain targets. There is no one size fits all on fossil fuels,” she said.

Following the @theGCF B30 Board meeting. It is absolutely disgusting seeing how some developed countries are using the GCF and the needs of developing countries to impose their unilateral will and conditions on them.

— Zaheer Fakir (@zaheer_fakir) October 7, 2021

DBSA is a development finance institution wholly owned by the South African government with 60% of its financing directed to the rest of the African continent.

Oil Change International data shared with Climate Home News shows that between 2018 and 2020, DBSA supported gas projects with $270m in financing, compared with nearly $320m for wind and solar.

Some of the DBSA-backed projects included a gas power plant in Ghana and LNG production in Mozambique.

However, campaigners warned that poor transparency in reporting at DBSA meant the true figures could be higher.

Campaigners have directly called on the South African government to commit to stop funding fossil fuels through DBSA by ensuring the bank adopts a fossil fuel finance exclusion policy and increases financing for accelerating the clean energy transition.

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Members from rich nations pushed back against calls to re-accredit DBSA without any conditions and the issue was postponed to a future meeting.

Stéphane Cieniewski, of France, said the conditions were “not unreasonable or excessive” and aligned with the Paris accord.

Lars Roth, of Sweden, one of the board members who requested the net zero condition be applied to DBSA, told the meeting the bank was “already working on and intended to approve” a 2050 net zero goal across its portfolio and would be making a formal announcement in a couple of months.

Meanwhile, the fund agreed to re-accredit the UN Development Programme for another five years, amid ongoing corruption investigations into two of its projects in Albania and Samoa.

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Overall, the board approved $1.2 billion for 13 new carbon-cutting and adaptation projects – a record amount for a single board meeting.

This included $125m for the GCF to become an anchor investor in the creation of a global fund to support and de-risk private investment designed to protect and restore coral reefs around the world.

The Global Fund for Coral Reef will support companies investing in sustainable fisheries and aquaculture practices, coral farming, plastic waste management and water treatment.

But it will also promote ecotourism and the development of “sustainably-managed hotel resorts” and tourists activities such as “surf, diving, snorkelling and cruises”.

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The proposal was submitted by Pegasus Capital Advisors, a Delaware-incorporated private equity firm. The fund is due to be rolled out in 17 countries and aims to protect 29,000 hectare of reef globally and create nearly 13,000 jobs.

Board members overwhelmingly backed the design of the project despite strong opposition from civil society members acting as observers at the fund.

“We are very concerned that instead of helping communities in reef ecosystems adapt from climate change impacts, this adaptation project will profit out of harming the reefs,” Erika Lennon, of the Center for Environmental Law, told the board.

Lennon described the absence of connection between funding surf, diving or snorkelling enterprises with safeguarding reef ecosystems as “woefully inadequate” and urged for investments in hotel resorts, cruises and shrimp farming to be explicitly excluded from the scope of the project.

She warned that reef-damaging practices promoted by the project risked damaging the GCF’s reputation.

The post Dispute grips Green Climate Fund over net zero condition for accessing finance appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Green Climate Fund was created to help poor countries curb their emissions and cope with climate impacts. It depends on agencies like UNDP to deliver projects in poor nations.

The GCF accreditation panel is recommending the fund renew ties with the UN development agency, its largest implementing partner, at a virtual board meeting this week, despite claims of corruption and concerns over weak implementation of UNDP policies at its regional bureaux.

Documents for the meeting state that allegations of corruption have been raised against UNDP-led projects in Armenia and Samoa, approved by the fund. The GCF is awaiting the outcome of an UNDP investigation into the claims.

And donor countries are still pressing UNDP to show evidence that remedial action has been taken over a long-running corruption scandal at one of its programmes in Russia.

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Allegations of misappropriation of millions of dollars in the programme designed to promote energy efficiency in Russia, funded by the Global Environment Facility, seriously damaged the agency’s reputation.

A source with knowledge of the dossier told Climate Home News that UNDP’s bid to renew its accreditation with the GCF was “cynical” and the UN body should first “put its house in order”.

A UNDP spokesperson told Climate Home the agency had gone through “an extensive and transparent due diligence process as part of the re-accreditation process” and insisted that the allegations made against its GEF-related programmes have been “significantly investigated”.

He added the agency was “swiftly implementing recommendations” in response to the case and strengthening its oversight policies.

UNDP is the biggest implementing partner of the GCF both in the number of funded projects and volume of finance secured. As the end of July, the GCF board had approved 35 UNDP projects around the world worth $2.4bn.

Liane Schalatek, a climate finance expert with the Heinrich Boell Foundation and a close GCF observer, described the re-accreditation of UNDP as “tricky” given its role as a “go-to international implementing partner for GCF projects for many developing countries”.

At stake in this GCF board week’s meeting is whether UNDP has robust enough systems and oversight in place across the organisation to receive, investigate and appropriately act on allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

Information shared by sources with Climate Home point to a culture of covering up fraud and failing to protect whistleblowers, which they say still hasn’t been fully addressed.

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Six UNDP projects were on the GCF’s watch list for close monitoring as of July, according to fund documents.

A $66 million flood management project in Samoa, which Climate Home previously reported raised concerns among technical experts, and a $116m project to improve energy efficiency in Armenia through retrofitting building both had corruption allegations raised against them.

UNDP did not respond to specific questions about allegations of corruption at these projects.

A GCF spokesperson told Climate Home News the fund has “a zero-tolerance policy to integrity violations” and was “working closely with UNDP to ensure that our projects are correctly managed”.

He added UNDP had been “fully transparent” during the review process and that the accreditation panel concluded that it was able to appropriately deal with misconduct allegations.

Recommendations for re-accreditation were made on condition that the UN body rolls out anti-money laundering policy across the organisation and demonstrates in 2024, through an independent study, that corrective actions have been implemented.

UNDP administrator Achim Steiner (Photo: UNDP/Astrid Stawiarz/Flickr)

In July, UNDP head Achim Steiner, told the executive board, in an update seen by Climate Home, that “UNDP – and I personally – have zero tolerance for any fraud, misappropriation or irregularities”.

Yet, nearly seven years after a whistleblower alleged that Russian officials were awarding lucrative contracts to friends and family in the GEF-funded project, no one has yet been held publicly accountable. The full story about the decade-long Russia programme, which closed in 2017, is yet to emerge.

An independent review published earlier this year concluded that issues of weak governance were “systemic” and that “a number of individuals were able to game the relatively weak systems of governance and technical capacity”. The whistleblower case was handled unsatisfactorily, it found.

Steiner told the board he had been provided “with a comprehensive view” of the issues and that individual responsibilities had been established. “Half a dozen” people still working for UNDP have been given formal reprimands, including administrative leave while steps towards disciplinary processes are being taken, he said.

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Among donors, some concerns over UNDP’s ability to handle corruption allegations remain.

After first writing to Steiner in March 2020 to express concerns, the Netherlands froze €10m of its voluntary €30m annual contribution to UNDP, citing dissatisfaction with how UNDP responded to the allegations.

A spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry told Climate Home that “UNDP should restore confidence that the alleged malpractices have been adequately investigated and that lessons are broadly drawn to prevent similar problems in the future”.

At a GEF council meeting in June, Konrad Specker, of Switzerland, said his government shared “fundamental concerns” over UNDP. He added that recommendations and policy changes “do not really address the questions related to management behaviour and organisation culture”.

“We believe that unless these issues are addressed, it remains questionable to what extent the management actions being taken will produce the real change on the ground that has been advocated for,” he warned.

The post GCF considers renewed partnership with UNDP, amid corruption investigations appeared first on Climate Home News.

Tensions rose during the online board meeting of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) after only one out of three adaptation projects submitted to the fund’s secretariat was presented to the board for approval.

Two adaptation projects and one project with both adaptation and emissions-cutting elements didn’t make it pass the fund’s technical advisory panel.

The independent body said it wasn’t clear if the projects were focused on climate adaptation, as opposed to general development, and historical data was lacking.  

One of the rejected projects was to “build resilience to hydro-meterological hazards” in Timor Leste, with a large share of funding earmarked for fire trucks. The technical panel deemed the project’s climate impact to be “weak”. While drought and heat can drive wildfire risk, slash and burn techniques to clear land were seen as the dominant cause of fires.

The result was that the board only had four bids to consider, instead of seven, and the balance tilted towards mitigation. All four worth $501 million were approved. In grant equivalent terms, just 18% went to support communities coping with erratic weather and sea level rise.

“It is no longer acceptable to come to the board and be presented with such a deeply imbalanced portfolio,” said Richard Muyungi, of Tanzania, representing African nations.

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Victor Viñas, of the Dominican Republic, told the meeting the technical body alone shouldn’t have the power to veto adaptation projects.

“This is unfair to least developed countries,” shouted Jeremiah Sokan, of Liberia.  “You are not putting money in the GCF to deprive vulnerable countries. And let people die because they don’t have the data. That’s not what we are for!”

In a fiery exchange, Sokan accused the chair of the technical panel Daniel Nolasco of considering himself “a demi-God” for denying these projects — remarks for which he later apologised.

Sokan added that requesting low-income countries, with low institutional capacity, to provide 30 years of climate impact data was “automatically impeding countries to access funding”.

Nolasco insisted national circumstances were taken into account when judging the projects and called for policy guidance from the board.

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Board members from developing countries said rules that prevent projects that haven’t been endorsed by the technical panel to reach the board should be temporarily suspended until more robust guidance could be provided to the panel. Members from richer nations opposed the idea, pushing the debate to the next meeting.

The GCF has committed to split its funding 50/50 between adaptation and mitigation projects, in grant equivalent terms – which it is on track for. But in nominal terms, 66% of funding has so far been allocated to mitigation projects, against 34% for adaptation.

While donors face calls from recipient countries to close the adaptation finance gap, the climate credibility of such initiatives is under scrutiny. Many have been accused of inflating adaptation funding figures by counting spending on earthquake resilience, for example.

In a statement following the meeting, GCF executive director Yannick Glemarec promised to “step up our efforts to prioritise adaptation projects for our next board meeting”.

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After repeated delays and wrangling over procedural issues, the board agreed to partner with the fossil-fuel backing Japanese bank Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC).

SMBC was accredited by the fund after the bank announced in May that it will no longer finance newly planned coal-fired power plants and the expansion of existing plants.  

But campaigners say the bank’s new policy is “misleading” and includes loopholes that could see support for coal projects that use “clean coal technologies” and the co-firing of coal with biomass, with carbon capture and storage for example.

And the bank has no plans to phase out support for oil and gas. SMBC is involved in oil and gas pipelines in the US, Canada, Uganda, Mozambique and the Balkans.

More than 450 organisations signed a petition urging the board to reject the bank’s bid.

Lidy Nacpil, of the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD), described the accreditation decision as “a big letdown for people and climate”.  

“SMBC is among the world’s biggest fossil fuel financiers. It will now have access to climate finance, which are public funds intended to support developing countries most vulnerable to climate change. These are countries devastated by fossil fuel projects supported by this dirty company,” she said.

The post Row erupts at Green Climate Fund over who defines climate adaptation appeared first on Climate Home News.

The US President has asked Congress for a 12% increase in funding for the State department and other international programmes in the fiscal year October 2021 to September 2022.

This proposal, which will be debated and used as guidance by Congress, includes a $1.2bn contribution to the UN-backed GCF and $1.3bn for other bilateral and multilateral climate programmes.

Climate campaigners in the US, South Africa and the Phillipines said that the Biden administration should give more to the fund, which helps developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Alex Lenferna, a Johannesburg-based campaigner at 350 Africa, told Climate Home News that $1.2bn was an “insult to the Global South”. He said: “If you add up all the climate damage that has been done through years of US delay, denial, obstruction of climate action, it adds up to the trillions not the billions. So this $1.2bn is really a slap in the face.”

World Resources Institute’s Joe Thwaites said: “This puts the US back in the game but falls short of what is needed to restore America’s global credibility on climate.”

Under Barack Obama, the US promised $3bn to fund but had only handed out $1bn before Donald Trump withdrew US support from the GCF. The Biden administration has promised to “make good” on Obama’s promise but the $1.2bn falls short of the $2bn it owes.

Green Climate Fund whistleblowers urge US to take its money elsewhere – until ‘toxic’ workplace is fixed

In 2019, several donor countries doubled their original funding to the GCF including France, Germany, Sweden, Norway and the UK.

In February 2021, US campaigners urged Biden to give $8bn to the GCF, to catch up with other contributors.

In March, 40 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote asking Biden to send $4bn to the GCF in this fiscal year, to fulfil the $2bn outstanding pledge and as the first installment of a new $6bn pledge.

Lidy Nacpil, co-ordinator of the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development, said $1.2bn was “not enough” for the US to make up the balance of what Obama promised or its failure to increase its pledge in 2019.

She added it was “certainly not enough in terms of US share in the obligations for climate finance delivery that should be a minimum of $100 billion a year based on Paris Agreement targets – and several times more than that based on actual need”.

This contribution would make the US one of the biggest donors to the fund but behind France, Germany and Japan.

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Separate to his budget proposal, Biden is seeking approval from Congress for a $2 trillion infrastructure spending bill, much of which will be spent on climate programmes like railways, electric vehicles, clean energy and adapting to the effects of climate change.

Lenferna contrasted the US’ large domestic spending to its funding for the GCF. “The idea that the world should deal with the pittance that is $1.2bn I think is just orders of magnitude short of what is required.”

Whistleblowers from the GCF have questioned whether it is the right vehicle for climate finance. Former staff told Climate Home News the organisation had a hostile working environment and a lack of integrity under political pressure. They urged the US to take its money elsewhere until the fund’s “toxic” work culture was fixed.

Action Aid USA’s director of policy and campaigns Brandon Wu said that, despite its flaws, the GCF was “still the best multilateral channel for climate finance”.

“Civil society organisations have been working to correct many of these shortcomings ever since the GCF’s inception. The GCF has not yet lived up to its full potential, but its foundational principles are strong and governments must work to strengthen these,” he added.

The post Joe Biden’s $1.2bn budget for Green Climate Fund falls short of campaigner demands appeared first on Climate Home News.

The presidential climate envoy is seeking to rebuild bridges with the rest of the world after Donald Trump reneged on US climate commitments. 

Delivering a $2 billion outstanding pledge to the UN-backed climate fund, for distribution to projects in developing countries, is widely seen as a good place to start. 

Campaigners are calling on the Biden administration to commit a further $6bn to the fund. Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the fund, says US reengagement “will send an extraordinarily positive signal” and allow it to accelerate support for the green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

But the latest staff survey results, presented internally last month and seen by Climate Home News, show faith in the fund’s leadership is at rock bottom. Views of the senior management team were 24% favourable, 40% unfavourable.

Unless there is urgent reform, whistleblowers tell Climate Home News, the money would be better directed elsewhere. 

Three employees of the GCF secretariat who quit in 2019 and 2020 cite concerns about a lack of integrity in vetting projects and abuses of power creating a hostile working environment. This, they say, affects the quality of projects on the ground.

“Sincerely, I don’t think that the GCF, the way it is managed today, is a good channel for climate finance,” says Pierre-Daniel Telep, a German national with Cameroonian heritage who worked on renewable energy projects at the fund for two and a half years.

“We don’t believe the GCF will ever be able to meet its mandate,” says Mary, a climate finance specialist from a developing country. 

“There was inappropriate pressure to approve projects which could harm people,” says James, a technical specialist from a developed country.

Mary and James are not their real names. Both asked not to be named as they still work in the sector and fear it could harm their careers to speak on the record.

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For James, the main concern was political interference in the quality control process. Often the work was rewarding, he says, but “the moment you had a difficult project, you were on your own – you had no support from senior management”. 

Some of the most problematic bids came from countries hosting GCF board meetings and expecting to secure multi-million-dollar investments in return. 

Bahrain put in a bid for $32 million ahead of hosting one such meeting in October 2018. Despite oil export wealth putting it in the World Bank’s “high income” bracket, it is classed as a developing country under the UN climate convention – and therefore eligible for international climate finance. 

On the basis that climate change was driving water scarcity in the kingdom, Manama – backed by the UN Environment Programme – was seeking support to develop an “unconventional” alternative source: clean up water produced when pumping oil out of the ground and inject it into the country’s only freshwater aquifer. 

Experts were appalled. It was, James says, “a shameless attempt to get GCF to subsidise the oil and gas industry, by dumping all their contaminants – including mercury, heavy metals and radioactive material – into the drinking water source”. 

The climate rationale for the project was “weak”, according to an independent technical advisory panel. Water stress in Bahrain had more to do with wasteful consumption than climate change – although that was a factor. 

Yet the project had an influential backer in Saudi board member Ayman Shasly, a veteran climate negotiator who previously worked for the oil company Saudi Aramco. James claims Shasly made calls to the director responsible for overseeing the technical assessment, putting pressure on him to wave the bid through.

Shasly did not respond to emailed requests for comment. 

“You owe this money to developing countries,” fumed Shasly at the board meeting. “Developed countries unfortunately are taking a hard line, making our lives miserable to approve peanuts, crumbs, small amounts of funding proposals.” 

Ultimately, Bahrain was awarded $2.3m – 7% of the original ask – for a relatively benign programme of “knowledge management”, after pushback from technical experts and other board members. But the project document maintains this will pave the way for recycling oil wastewater as “phase 2”. 

It was “a very stressful and unpleasant experience,” says James, that contributed to his decision to leave the fund. 

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It is not just board members from developing countries who interfere, says Mary. “Both sides do it… 

“The difficulty we have in the GCF is: because the policies of the GCF were not completed when the GCF started its operations, it created this situation where it was not always very clear what should be the remit of the board and what should be the responsibility of the secretariat.” 

Glemarec took up the leadership role in April 2019 and insists everything now goes through proper channels. “Today you will be hard pressed to do something like that,” he tells Climate Home News by video call, when asked about political interference. 

The GCF approved its first projects in 2016. Its governance structure is unique in that an equal number of board members are drawn from developed and developing countries, with all geographies represented. The intention was to empower beneficiaries to direct the funds where they were most needed. 

In practice, it makes for tense board meetings, replicating the dynamics of UN climate negotiations. “We are getting tantalisingly close, colleagues, as indeed we were two hours ago,” Canadian co-chair Susanne Szabo was saying wearily when Climate Home News tuned into the webcast of November’s meeting. They would take another hour to agree the text of a strategic plan for 2020-23 – almost a year into that period.

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This structure has not led to radically different outcomes to donor-led funds, in the view of Zaheer Fakir, a former board member from South Africa. “If you look at what the GCF is doing, it is no different to what the [Global Environment Facility] is doing or any [multilateral development bank] is doing,” he tells Climate Home News. “We have not really cracked uniqueness.” 

Throughout the early years, the buzzword was to “get money out the door”, while policies and processes were still under development. To this day, there is no ban on the GCF subsidising fossil fuels – a rule that could have prevented the Bahrain debacle. 

The GCF estimates over its lifetime, the current portfolio will avert 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 – equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan – and make 400 million people more resilient to the climate crisis.

“I am sceptical of the impact of the overall portfolio,” says Mary. “It is just not credible.” 

Internal auditors are about half way through a review of the portfolio’s emissions impact and expected to report by the end of the year, says Glemarec. So far, he admits, the numbers they are coming up with are “more conservative” than initially advertised. Next, they will audit the number of beneficiaries. 

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Then there are concerns about the workplace culture. 

In August 2020, the Financial Times reported on a wave of misconduct allegations at the fund. It cited the Re-Green Initiative – a network claiming to represent staff – and interviews with 17 current and former employees who remained anonymous. 

Complaints to the fund’s Independent Integrity Unit (IIU) nearly doubled to 40 in 2019, with 24 categorised as staff misconduct. Subsequent analysis by the IIU found that while the overall complaint rate was within range of similar institutions, the rate of misconduct allegations was significantly higher: 7.5 per 100 staff, compared to 1.8 at the World Bank and 2.8 at the Asian Development Bank. 

On 30 August, after publication of the FT investigation, the Re-Green Initiative wrote to the fund’s head Glemarec and board members. In the email, seen by Climate Home News, they blamed a “toxic working environment” for an exodus of staff. 

Telep, the former GCF employee, got into a series of disputes with management during and after his time at the fund, with allegations of misconduct going both ways. Like many employees, Telep uprooted his family to work at the headquarters in Songdo, South Korea. He was repeatedly threatened with failing his probation period and not confirmed in the role for 15 months. 

As an example of the atmosphere, he recalls a senior colleague claimed to keep a gun in the office and joked about using it against another member of staff. “It was not really a professional working environment,” says Telep. “It was a difficult time.”

It was worse for women in junior positions, he says. He describes seeing a colleague reduced to tears by mistreatment, who said she did not have the confidence in the system to raise a grievance. “People in really fragile situations are really being abused,” he tells Climate Home News.

Several colleagues left around the same time as Telep in mid-2020, he says, adding: “The change that we really wanted to bring, that was necessary in the organisation, was not coming.”

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Telep raised two complaints to the IIU, in June 2018 and December 2019, concerning abuses of power by senior staff, a hostile work environment, conflicts of interest and project integrity. A GCF spokesperson said the first was investigated and closed as unsubstantiated in April 2020, while the second was the subject of an ongoing investigation. Telep says he was not informed of the outcome of the closed investigation, contrary to the GCF’s stated policy of notifying known complainants by email. 

This week, Telep was told by the IIU that he faced disciplinary action in respect of a complaint lodged against him in January 2020 – by a subject of his earlier allegations. The main finding was that he had accepted travel sponsorship from another organisation to attend Cop25 climate talks, amounting to a conflict of interest.

Telep admits to accepting the sponsorship but disputes the way it was characterised, saying it was common practice for partner organisations to cover travel expenses of GCF staff. He sees the investigation as retaliation for his earlier complaints. “They are trying to discredit me,” he says. “I think it is necessary to speak out to solve the problems [at the GCF].”

The GCF said its policy offered “strong protection” to whistleblowers and Telep’s allegation of retaliation was unsubstantiated.

But the fact that rules have been enforced against Telep and not his superior may fuel a sense of double standards within the organisation. In the 2020 staff survey, just 16% said senior management led by example and 19% said senior management were held accountable for their decisions and actions.

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Glemarec attributes the spike in misconduct complaints to a lack of internal grievance mechanisms. An IIU investigation takes up to two years, in a deliberative process designed to give legal cover should the case end up in an employment tribunal. It requires a high standard of evidence to prove wrongdoing and cases against just three individuals were substantiated through 2018-20. 

This was “causing a lot of frustration,” says Glemarec. “The problem is that if somebody has been making my life miserable for two years, by their behaviour, by their nasty comments… to be told after two years your case is not misconduct… actually you are adding insult to injury.” 

Since 2019, the organisation has sought to improve the options for raising grievances internally. It hired two mediators and an ombudsperson and is rolling out training on conflict resolution to all staff. An appeals committee has been set up to handle disputes over administrative decisions, which heard three cases in 2020. 

These measures should show results by the end of 2022, says Glemarec: “I wish to see a dramatic increase in resolution.” 

In 2020, the number of misconduct allegations raised went down to 17. Five complaints of harassment were upheld against an individual working for one of the fund’s independent units, who was fired as a result, according to a GCF spokesperson. 

But five senior managers accused in the Re-Green email of abuses of power, including sexual harassment of interns and bullying, are still working for the GCF, based on their LinkedIn profiles. That email and others like it were passed to the IIU to investigate, and the spokesperson said staff had been urged to report any grievances. 

The 2020 staff survey included new questions designed to “probe pain points” identified through a series of “safe space” meetings. It showed there was a long way to go to regain staff trust: only one in three respondents (31%) said they believed action would be taken to address the problems identified.

The GCF spokesperson said staff were being consulted on which actions to prioritise to respond effectively to the survey.

“We will never be able to deliver on our mandate if we don’t create an institution that attracts the best talent,” says Glemarec, stressing that the GCF is only five years old and it takes time to establish a workplace culture. 

GCF executive director Yannick Glemarec speaking at an event at Cop25 in Madrid, Spain, in December 2019 (Photo: IISD/ENB/ Diego Noguera/Flickr)

Glemarec gives an animated pitch for why the US should increase its support. The GCF is on pace to programme $1 billion worth of projects at each of its three annual board meetings. With extra pledges, that could be scaled up to $1.5 billion. “This organisation is moving by leaps and bounds,” he says. 

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the fund is prioritising job-rich initiatives in areas like energy efficiency and restoring ecosystems, Glemarec says. “We decided to accelerate development of projects that could have not only a huge climate impact but a building-back-better, sustainable development impact.” 

A $60 million facility to provide low-interest loans to suppliers of solar home systems and clean cookstoves in sub-Saharan Africa was approved within 190 days, for example. It is intended to give small companies the liquidity to ride out a pandemic-induced economic downturn. 

In the pipeline ahead of Cop26 climate talks in November are funding proposals for the Great Green Wall initiative across the Sahel, access to clean cooling in hot countries, and resilient infrastructure in the Caribbean. 

A spokesperson for the State Department told Climate Home News they would have details “in the coming months” on the US contribution to the GCF. “The Biden-Harris Administration will examine how best to reengage with the GCF and work to ensure this important institution is adequately funded and equipped to serve the Paris Agreement.” 

The fund is “a critical component” of the administration’s climate finance plans, the spokesperson said. “We will work with the GCF board and leadership, as well as with accredited entities, to ensure that the fund is maximizing impact and transparency.”

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A key figure developing the US climate finance strategy is Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, who joined Kerry’s team from the World Resources Institute. Shortly before his appointment he co-authored a report on “transforming climate finance”, which covered the whole architecture of public and private, bilateral and multilateral, specialist and non-specialist channels for supporting climate goals. 

The report praised the “significant strides” made in the GCF’s operations since its replenishment by other donor countries in October 2019. A commitment by the US to join the replenishment “could provide a welcome boost to the resources needed by the GCF,” it said. “There is also a need to anticipate and prepare for a much more ambitious second replenishment.” 

For the whistleblowers, fixing the “toxic” workplace culture needs to come first. 

“Personally, I think if the US really cares about climate and not the political angle… a better investment could be something more effective, more nimble, more professionally managed,” says Telep. 

“I want GCF to work but to work they have got to have quality projects and show both the beneficiaries and the donors that the money is spent effectively,” says James. 

While Mary says the US should keep its $2 billion promise, she suggests other funds or bilateral agreements could be a better route for scaling up finance. “I am of the view that we should be thinking about other ways to deliver climate finance to some countries.”

The GCF issued a statement following publication of this article. You can read the statement here.

The post Green Climate Fund whistleblowers urge US to take its money elsewhere – until ‘toxic’ workplace is fixed appeared first on Climate Home News.

The project was approved at a GCF board meeting in the Samoan capital Apia in December 2016, held at the Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys hotel. That same hotel was forced to close after heavy rainfall caused the Vaisigano river to burst its banks on 18 December 2020, swamping conference rooms.

A technical expert with knowledge of the project, who asked not to be named, said the first set of flood defences had been badly built, with little or no analysis of the force of water they would need to withstand.

“It is disgraceful,” the expert told Climate Home News. “They have wasted a lot of money on building those walls – they are not structurally sound. When there is a flood and sea level rise, it is going to put a lot of people in danger.”

A conference room of the Sheraton Samoa Aggie Greys Hotel in December 2020, after the Vaisigano River breached flood defences and swamped the property

The flood management project was developed by the Samoan government in partnership with the UN Development Programme. It aims to protect people and infrastructure including schools, hospitals, government buildings, businesses and homes from recurrent flooding of the Vaisigano river catchment, particularly associated with severe tropical storms.

Before considering the funding proposal, board members visited communities hard hit by Cyclone Evan and associated flooding in 2012. They spoke in the board meeting about how moved they were by the experience and approved the project with little hesitation.

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By the end of 2019, $12 million had been disbursed and three sections of flood defence built, including “segment one” of a river wall around Aggie Greys hotel, according to the annual performance report. These were trumpeted within the UN-backed fund as ‘built by the GCF’, according to the expert source.

However in response to questions from Climate Home News, GCF spokesperson Simon Wilson said the fund’s planned flood walls under the project, which would be designed to protect against a 1-in-50 year rainfall event, had not been built yet. The work carried out to date was to “augment existing flood wall construction” in response to damage caused by a cyclone in 2018.

Earlier flood defences had been financed by the Least Developed Countries Fund.

A flood defence wall built along the Vaisigano river through Samoan capital Apia

According to the UNDP “segment one” was designed to withstand a level of rainfall expected to strike once in 20 years and built according to national and international standards. The Samoan ministry of works oversaw construction. The wall remained intact after December’s rainfall, which was judged to be a 1-in-25 year event.

Water breached the river banks at segments two and three, where walls have yet to be built, flooding areas including the hotel, said a UNDP spokesperson. “While the flood walls adjacent to the hotel assisted with reducing the flooding and remained intact, it was not able to completely eliminate flooding in the hotel…

“Our expectation is that once the GCF funded protection works in segment two and three are completed the vulnerability of lower lying areas of the floodplain should lower.”

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The technical expert highlighted flaws in the walls constructed to date, based on pictures shared by colleagues in 2019, including a lack of ballast behind the wall to stop it flipping under heavy river flow.

Independent civil engineers shown photos of the construction echoed those concerns. “It seems that no-one has taken the trouble to calculate the overturning moment generated by the flood water and provided a means of resisting that moment,” said consultant John Knapton.

Andres Diaz Loaiza, of the University of Columbia, noted a gap in the wall that could cause it to fail. “Indeed, once a part of the wall will start failing, then the rest of the wall will start failing as a domino effect,” he said.

Wilson said the GCF followed up on those concerns with UNDP following a trip to Samoa in 2019 and recruited an independent agent to carry out an assessment visit “as soon as the evolution of the Covid pandemic makes it possible”. That assessment will feed into a GCF review of the detailed designs for the next phase of work, he said.

The UNDP spokesperson said the gap in the wall was there to allow for a bridge to be built, which was completed in August 2020.

The wall built along the Vaisigano river in 2019. Experts warned the gap in the wall could cause the whole thing to fail

Liane Schalatek is a climate finance expert with the Heinrich Boell Foundation who has followed the GCF since its inception. She said that while she could not comment on the specifics of the Samoa case, civil society had long called for better independent monitoring of project implementation.

“Currently, GCF implementing partners mainly self-report in an annual performance report how well project implementation is going. Only in rare cases and with massive red flags might the secretariat follow up with a site visit,” said Schalatek.

This article was amended after publication to include further information provided by UNDP about the building codes followed and work carried out in 2020.

The post Concerns raised about Green Climate Fund flood defence project in Samoa appeared first on Climate Home News.

The fund was created by the UN to support poor countries, that are not historically responsible for causing the climate crisis, to cut their emissions and cope with climate impacts.

In a letter signed by 46 NGOs, including 350.org, ActionAid, Greenpeace and Oxfam, campaigners wrote: “As the world’s largest historical greenhouse gas emitter, it is both a legal obligation and a moral imperative for the United States to provide finance for developing countries.”

The US owes $2bn to the fund after Donald Trump reneged on a pledge to deliver $3bn to the fund under Barack Obama. Obama’s administration had only transferred $1bn before Trump withdrew US support.

Speaking during a high-level summit on climate adaptation last month, US presidential climate envoy John Kerry promised the US would “make good on our climate finance pledge”. He stopped short of announcing a new commitment.

Campaign groups say the Biden Administration should commit another $6bn to bring the US in step with other donor countries, which doubled their contributions to the fund during its first replenishment in 2019.

Indian farmers head for showdown with government over agricultural reform

At the time, 13 countries, largely European nations together with the UK, South Korea and New Zealand, announced a doubling or more of their contributions to the GCF to help fund green projects for the 2020-2023 period.

But with no contributions from the US, Russia or Australia, the total raised was only $9.8 billion, less than the fund’s start-up capital. As of December 2018, the GCF had identified a $15bn pipeline of projects.

The letter, sent to the White House, added the US has “a duty to ensure that climate finance supports the most vulnerable communities and avoids projects that further entrench fossil fuel infrastructure, such as carbon capture and storage”.

In addition, it called on the US to provide $400 million over four years to the Adaptation Fund. Campaigners described it as “the quickest fund at delivering funding to communities in need”.

The funding requests do not represent a fair share of what the US should do to address the climate crisis but “it is an essential and immediate starting point for the US to build on in the future,” they wrote. Doing its fair share requires the US to reduce emissions at home and provide grant-based funds to support poorer nations, they added.

Cop26 dream team: The people setting the climate agenda on seven key issues

Kerry has promised to “significantly increase” the flow of finance to adaption and resilience initiatives, which he said would include concessional financing, which usually refers to loans with more generous terms than the market rate. It remains unclear what share of finance will go to adaptation versus mitigation projects and how much of it will be grant-based.

Adaptation finance represents only about a fifth of all climate finance, according to the latest data analysis by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). And the share of loans has risen with developing nations expected to pay back nearly three quarters of all the climate money they receive, according to the same 2018 dataset.

Anti-poverty charity Oxfam has previously warned climate finance was adding to the debt burden of vulnerable nations, at a time when debts levels are ballooning as countries respond to the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Oxfam described the “excessive use of loans” in climate finance as “an overlooked scandal”.

The post US campaigners call on Joe Biden to commit $8bn to the Green Climate Fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

That was the charge put by campaigners as the Green Climate Fund approved $103 million of funding to Indonesia at a virtual board meeting this week.

A letter to GCF board members signed by 85 civil society groups, including 15 from Indonesia, called it “shameful” for the board to reward governments “that continue to heavily engage in and promote large-scale deforestation”.

The UN-backed programme known as Redd+ incentivises countries to conserve forests, which limit global warming by drawing carbon dioxide out of the air. Under a “payment-by-results” mechanism, nations retrospectively get cash for avoiding emissions from forest loss and degradation during a set period of time compared with an agreed baseline.

In recent years the GCF, which was created to help poor countries curb their emissions and cope with the impacts of climate change, has accepted bids for money under the scheme.

Civil society groups and some GCF board members warned countries have been allowed to cherry-pick data to make the results on paper look better than the reality on the ground.

Indonesia: Forest destruction spikes under coronavirus lockdown

A pilot funding window for Redd+ projects has so far paid out nearly $230 million to Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Paraguay. In each country, deforestation has risen following the claim period, according to Global Forest Watch data.

The payment to Indonesia approved on Wednesday was based on 20 million tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide between 2014 and 2016, compared to historical rates of forest destruction. The proceeds are to support decentralised forest governance.

Yet deforestation in Indonesia has recently spiked under the cover of Covid-19 lockdown and the government is seeking to roll back environmental regulations for businesses.

Board members expressed “serious concerns” about the Indonesian proposal, including the methodology for calculating avoided emissions and the implementation of safeguards to protect local communities and indigenous people.

A separate decision on paying $28 million to Colombia was suspended twice during the GCF meeting, which runs until the end of the week. Members were considering payments for the period 2015-16, despite a sharp rise in deforestation in 2017.

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Board member Tobias Von Platen-Hallermund, of Denmark, noted both countries had recently seen an increase in deforestation. He added the GCF should focus on countries “that have been successfully keeping deforestation rates low during the [GCF’s] reporting period to claim payments” which runs from 2014 to 2018.

Hans Olav Ibrekk, of Norway, said that although he welcomed Indonesia’s past efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation, “the project has some characteristics that in our view affect the environmental integrity of the results”.

He cited inconsistencies in the way the baseline has been calculated for funding bids through different organisations.

Norway, in a bilateral deal with Indonesia to curb deforestation, uses a 10-year baseline 2006-2016 to calculate emissions reductions.

The bid to the GCF measured avoided emissions against the average over 20 years from 1993 to 2012 – a period Ibrekk said was too long. A third and even longer baseline is used by UN Climate Change, covering the period 1990-2012.

In technical guidance, the GCF recommends choosing a baseline period of 10-15 years and not exceeding 20 years.

Big oil need not apply: UK raises the bar for UN climate summit sponsorship

Jutta Kill, a researcher at the World Rainforest Movement, told Climate Home News, countries were allowed to “pick and choose” a reference level to calculate emissions that would “maximise funding flows” rather than “present a reasonable reflection of emissions that have been avoided… That is unacceptable,” she said.

Addressing the meeting on behalf of civil society, Erika Lennon, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, questioned the validity of the baseline. She added the scheme “did not address the real drivers of deforestation”.

The civil society letter noted the governments of Indonesia and Colombia had chosen both the period for which they claimed emissions reductions and the baseline against which to compare emissions.

“This opens the door for skilful manufacture of calculations that will result in an outcome that is favourable to the respective country. What is shameful is that the GCF accepts such games and allows governments to ignore the overall far more complex dynamic of the deforestation process in time and space,” it said.

Angola ratifies Paris Agreement promising more ambitious climate plan

Responding to civil society concerns, the UN Development Programme, which is supporting the Redd+ programme in Indonesia, insisted the baseline used was “valid” and “complete”.

Scrutiny over the effectiveness of Redd+ comes as the GCF is due to start a consultation process at the end of September to decide whether to continue its Redd+ pilot funding programme beyond 2022.

A number of board members expressed their support for Redd+, describing it as a fundamental tool for climate action. Others were more cautious.

“More than ever we should be guided by funding proposals with the highest possible impact and environmental integrity,” warned board member Paola Pettinari, of Italy. Otherwise the GCF will be faced with “huge reputational risk,” added Stefan Schwager, of Switzerland.

For Kill and a number of other NGOS, the GCF should stop approving Redd+ funding requests altogether. “GCF is dishing out money for a concept that is not working,” she said. “Funding that should be available for countries to deal with the changes that climate chaos demands is wasted for paying for emissions reductions that exist on paper only.”

The post UN fund pays Indonesia for forest protection as deforestation rises appeared first on Climate Home News.

Under the plan, UN Environment urged massive investments in energy efficiency for buildings, a boost for wind and solar energy, cuts in fossil fuel subsidies and a host of other measures. It reckoned the bill would amount to 1% of global GDP, or about $750 billion.

But the global economy rebounded, still reliant on fossil fuels, despite efforts to diversify. Carbon dioxide emissions grew by a huge 5.8% in 2010, after a 1.4% dip in 2009, and have risen most years since.

Will the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 10,000 people worldwide, offer a new chance to shape a greener, more sustainable world when the economy revives?

Read Chloé Farand’s insightful interview with Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, in which he says governments have a “historic opportunity” to usher in an era of climate action when they design long-term stimulus packages.

“Well put @IEABirol,” Christiana Figueres, the former head of UN Climate Change and an architect of the Paris Agreement, commented about the article in a tweet. “We have a massive crisis = opportunity on our hands. We cannot afford to waste it. Recovery must be green.”

In recent years, the idea of green new deals – which echo US President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1930s New Deal after the Great Depression – have caught on in many nations as a way to combat the climate crisis.

And the world now has a lesson to learn from the failings a decade ago.

“We have a responsibility to recover better” than after the financial crisis, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday, saying the global health crisis was unlike any in the 75-year history of the UN.

“We have a framework for action – the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. We must keep our promises for people and planet,” he added.

The task is daunting. The UN says global cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 7.6% a year are needed over the next decade to get on track to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial times.

But the Covid-19 emergency has opened a new window for a clean energy transition for the world economy.

Slow burn

The pandemic is slowing developing nations’ efforts to work out more ambitious climate plans, which are due to be submitted before talks in Glasgow, still scheduled for November, at the first five-year milestone of the Paris Agreement.

“We are entering into unknown territory,” said Jahan Chowdhury, in-country engagement director for the NDC Partnership, which supports about 75 developing countries design and deliver their climate plans.

The coronavirus is also disrupting Brussels’ legislative process, now unable to work at full capacity. This may delay the EU’s work on its Green Deal, under which the EU Commission wants Europe to be the world’s first carbon-neutral continent, Frédéric Simon at Euractiv writes.

Side effect  

The economic slowdown in China caused by the virus has at least one positive side-effect that is also now visible by satellites over Italy: less deadly air pollution.

The World Health Organisation says air pollution causes seven million deaths worldwide every year, by triggering cancers, heart and lung diseases.

In China alone, reduced air pollution could avert between 50,000 and 100,000 premature deaths if levels stay low for a whole year, according to researchers at the Center for International Climate Research in Norway. They estimate that more than a million people die every year in China from air pollution.

Contaminated 

Illustrating the risks of international travel and face-to-face meetings, the first coronavirus case in Liberia was recorded after an observer returned from a Green Climate Fund meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

The meeting went ahead after being moved as a precaution from the GCF headquarters in Songdo, South Korea, at a time when the nation had become one of the world’s hotspots for the virus.

This week’s top stories

• Coronavirus slows developing nations’ plans to step up climate action in 2020
• Coronavirus enters Liberia after observer returns from Green Climate Fund meeting
• Coronavirus response to delay EU Green Deal by weeks
• Governments have ‘historic opportunity’ to accelerate clean energy transition, IEA says
• Coronavirus: China’s economic slowdown curbs deadly air pollution

The post ‘Historic opportunity’ – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

The meeting was moved from the GCF headquarters in Songdo, South Korea, to the Swiss city of Geneva at a time when South Korea had become one of the world’s hotspots for the virus.

In a notice sent to participants on Tuesday, the GCF said an observer to the meeting “has been diagnosed positive with the Covid-19 virus upon returning to their country”.

“The participant is an observer from Liberia, and the positive diagnosis has been confirmed by the President of Liberia. Relevant authorities of the Canton of Geneva are being notified,” the statement added.

The news comes after some board members raised concerns about holding the meeting physically in Geneva, where at the time 40 cases of coronavirus, or Covid-19, had then been reported, rather than online.

Coronavirus slows developing nations’ plans to step up climate action in 2020

Attendance to the meeting, when board members discussed a new strategic plan for the next four years, was restricted with each board member and alternate member only able to be accompanied by one advisor.

In a statement before the meeting, the GCF said the room had capacity to accommodate 100 participants with registration available on a first come first served basis.

In an address to the country on Monday, Liberian president George Weah confirmed the coronavirus case and identified the observer as the executive director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The spread of this virus represents the greatest threat to the health and well-being of the people of Liberia since the Ebola epidemic suffered by our country from 2014 to 2016,” Weah said.

According to the World Health Organisation, 11,310 people died from Ebola in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone during that time.

Governments have ‘historic opportunity’ to accelerate clean energy transition, IEA says

During the GCF meeting, French board member Cyril Rousseau said “some board members objected” to proposals to hold the meeting online. “That was technically feasible,” he said, adding holding a physical meeting was “the wrong decision”.

“I am puzzled. I think there is some irresponsibility there… We are at risk of introducing the virus in countries where that can put some strain on their health systems,” he said.

Established in 2010, the GCF describes itself “the world’s largest dedicated fund helping developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and enhance their ability to respond to climate change”.

The GCF said it would inform participants of the infected observer’s accommodation and travel itinerary shortly and encouraged all other participants to follow guidance on necessary precaution including testing and self-isolation.

In a statement to Climate Home News, a GCF spokeswoman said the fund was “first and foremost concerned for the wellbeing of anyone who may have contracted or been exposed to Covid-19.” She added the GCF secretariat was working with Swiss and Korean authorities and public health officials to limit the risks of exposure and transmission.

The post Coronavirus enters Liberia after observer returns from Green Climate Fund meeting appeared first on Climate Home News.

Results of the Iowa Democratic presidential caucus on Monday have been delayed by inconsistencies in reporting the data.

The US will formally leave the 2015 Paris Agreement on 4 November 2020 after Trump decided to withdraw. Formally rejoining the climate accord would take a just month.

Policies by leading candidates in Iowa, based on their published plans:

BERNIE SANDERS

Domestic

Sanders aims for “100% renewable energy for electricity and transportation by no later than 2030 and complete decarbonisation of the economy by 2050 at latest”.

His foresees creation of  20 million jobs, including in renewable power, steel, construction, energy efficiency retrofitting, sustainable agriculture. He says he would “directly invest a historic $16.3 trillion public investment toward these efforts, in line with the mobilisation of resources made during the New Deal and WWII”.

He would declare climate change a “national emergency”.

Sanders, accusing the fossil fuel industry of “greed”, says he would make it pay for pollution and prosecute it “for the damage it has caused”.

International

Sanders would “commit to reducing emissions throughout the world, including providing $200 billion to the Green Climate Fund, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and reasserting the US’ leadership in the global fight against climate change”.

Sanders says the policies would help slash emissions both at home and abroad. “We will reduce domestic emissions by at least 71% by 2030,” he says, and help developing nations make deep emissions cuts.

UK’s Boris Johnson urges all countries to set net zero emissions goals in 2020

JOE BIDEN

Domestic

He says he would “ensure the US achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050”.

The “Green New Deal is a crucial framework for meeting the climate challenges we face”.

On his first day in office he plans to go beyond the platform he shared, as vice president, with former President Barack Obama by signing executive orders on clean energy and environmental justice. Under the Paris Agreement, Obama pledged cuts in greenhouse gases of 26-28% by 2025, below 2005 levels.

Biden says his climate and environmental justice proposal will make a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over the next ten years, leveraging additional private sector and state and local investments to total to more than $5 trillion.

International 

Biden says he “will go much further” than just recommitting the US to the Paris Agreement. Biden “will lead an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets”.

He will make sure those commitments are “transparent and enforceable, and stop countries from cheating by using America’s economic leverage and power of example,” his campaign says. Climate change would be integrated into trade, national security and foreign policies.

US Democrats will carry global hopes for climate action to 2020 poll

PETE BUTTIGIEG

Domestic 

“We aspire to make our society a net-zero emissions one no later than 2050, working aggressively toward immediate targets,” Buttigieg says.

As milestones, he plans to double the clean electricity generated in the US by 2025. By 2035, build a clean electricity system with zero emissions and require zero emissions for all new passenger vehicles.

By 2040, require net-zero emissions for all new heavy-duty vehicles, buses, rail, ships, and aircraft and develop a thriving carbon removal industry. By 2050, achieve net-zero emissions from industry, including steel and concrete, manufacturing, and agriculture sectors.

He would “enact a price on carbon and use the revenue to send rebates to Americans”.

International 

“We will take the steps necessary to rejoin the Paris Agreement on the first day in office and make clear to the world that we are ‘back in, and all in’,” he says.

Buttigieg says he would mobilise support for climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing nations, including “doubling” the US pledge to the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Trump cut off contributions to the GCF after Obama pledged an initial $3 billion. Part of the plan would be to “redevelop bilateral and multilateral relationships on climate change and clean energy with nations like China and India”.

ELIZABETH WARREN

Domestic 

Warren was an original co-sponsor of a Green New Deal proposed by Senator Ed Markey and representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, committing to a 10-year drive to achieve domestic net-zero emissions by 2030.

Her website says “independent economists have estimated that Elizabeth’s plans to address the climate crisis will inject over $10 trillion dollars into our economy and create over 10 million new jobs”.

Among goals, “by 2035, we will achieve 100% clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy in electricity generation. By 2030, we’ll reach 100% zero emissions for all new light-duty passenger vehicles, medium-duty trucks, and all buses. By 2028, we’ll attain 100% zero-carbon pollution for all new commercial and residential buildings.”

Warren plans to sign an executive order on her first day as president imposing a moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases, including for drilling offshore and on public lands.

International 

She says a “Green Marshall Plan” will provide American-made clean energy technology to countries that need it most. “She’ll commit $100 billion over ten years to offer discounts to countries hardest hit by the climate crisis, or as an incentive for regulatory changes that further reduce emissions,” her website says.

Countries will be required to join the Paris Climate Agreement – 187 of 197 nations have so far ratified the deal – and eliminate domestic fuel subsidies as a precondition for entering trade negotiations with the US.

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AMY KLOBUCHAR

Domestic

“In her first 100 days as President, Senator Klobuchar will introduce and work with Congress to pass sweeping legislation that will put our country on a path to achieving 100% net-zero emissions no later than 2050,” her plan says.

She would revive the Obama-era Clean Power Plan for cutting emissions and “will negotiate even stronger emissions standards that account for the progress states have already made”.

Among other measures, she would toughen fuel economy standards, and set “ambitious goals” to reduce the carbon footprint of the federal government. Klobuchar has proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure package that will modernise aging energy infrastructure.

International 

She would work to get back into the Paris Agreement “on day one” as part of a goal to “reestablish US international leadership on climate”.

Klobuchar “will work with international leaders to build consensus around stronger goals to limit global warming to no more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit” (1.5 degrees Celsius)”.

She would also seek to “establish meaningful enforcement of international climate goals.”

That would mean “making accountability for climate commitments a central part of our international agenda, taking on China’s efforts to promote dirty energy sources in other countries, and considering climate goals in all types of international assistance”.

The post Democratic contenders in Iowa caucus aim to rejoin Paris accord in green goals appeared first on Climate Home News.

The GCF is critical in helping developing countries implement their obligations under the Paris Agreement. In its brief existence, the fund has mobilised $5 billion for climate action in nearly 100 countries, which will avert 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and help more than 310 million people thrive. Impressively, given the glacial pace of international development, more than half of GCF projects are already being implemented.

With the fund’s resources now almost exhausted and the window of opportunity to act on climate change narrowing rapidly, its ability to support transformative climate action in countries most in need should be optimised.

The $9.8bn pledged by countries last week could be much more effectively deployed by recognising the inherent differences in the two overarching climate goals of adaptation and mitigation; and modifying both its allocation mix and its activities.

As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative

Put simply, the GCF should be reoriented to primarily support adaptation directly, and direct its mitigation funding towards creating the environment for private sector investment, while leaving implementation of the latter to the private sector.

Both mitigation and adaptation lead to the creation of a public good. However mitigation is a public good that is intrinsically global: the benefits of each tonne of greenhouse gases (GHG) mitigated are distributed worldwide, through the atmosphere. By contrast, adaptation is very much a local public good; the benefits of adaptation measures will usually only go to those in the local area or country.

This distinctive characteristic of mitigation versus adaptation seems obvious, but it has deep implications for financing facilitated by the GCF.

The “product” from mitigation can be commoditised and traded on the local and/or global markets. Most mitigation is achieved in measures that sit comfortably within the private finance sphere, such as energy, transport, efficiency, and agriculture. This means there is potential for international private sector entities to identify profitable pro-environmental opportunities, and to invest in global action that facilitates low carbon development.

Adaptation has far less potential to generate private sector opportunities. Even at the local level, adaptation fails to attract private sector investment, because the local public good it produces positive externalities that cannot be easily turned into a marketable commodity. This means adaptation necessarily involves public sector intervention: more robust public spending on infrastructure, healthier ecosystems, better health systems, etc.

There is a significantly more favourable global private sector investment environment for mitigation relative to adaptation, the bulk of which will remain the responsibility of the public sector.

The UN secretary general’s high level panel on climate finance has previously called for a significant proportion of the $100bn per year pledged to the GCF by rich countries by 2020 to come from the private sector.

This raises particular questions for adaptation. Building low carbon economies is the business of the future and lends itself to global investment. But would the private sector in France, Germany or the United States be interested in providing funds for Adaptation in The Seychelles, Tuvalu or Fiji?

It makes sense, then, for most of the GCF allocation to be used to support adaptation actions. GFC funds directed to mitigation should be done in a more strategic, facilitative manner. Adaptation only accounts for a quarter of GCF expenditure compared to 42% on mitigation.

Dr Ulric Trotz, deputy director and science advisor at the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, argues that “GCF resources should not be used to ‘implement’ actual mitigation actions,” such renewables projects and efficiency measures. Instead GCF mitigation funding should support the systems-level developments needed for clean energy transformation.

Such “systems transitions” are well documented in the IPCC 1.5 Special Report; where enabling conditions identified include policy and legislative reforms. GCF could also develop a pipeline of costed, ready to implement proposals. This would have a much bigger multiplier, both for climate and sustainability objectives, than funding mitigation projects directly.

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Adaptation would need implementation, but that too could be spent in ways that support more systemic improvements. Countries should integrate climate risk into national development plans and national budgets to access adaptation funding.

Using this approach, the normal envisaged expenditure in the budget (e.g. upgrading a coastal road) becomes the country baseline contribution to the “adaptation package” (i.e. what the country would have spent in any case on that action).

The incremental costs identified by the risk management analysis (adaptation costs) can then be accessed from the GCF. The capacity building issue here then becomes mainly one of how countries gain the capacity to “integrate climate risk” into their national development plans and yearly budgetary processes. This allows countries to clearly define their national adaptation resource needs across all sectors. The essential point here is that this approach provides an avenue for channelling adaptation funds to countries, through a “budgetary support” process (by implication through the Ministry of Finance),

Bold global climate action is undermined by political timidity. The failure of rich countries to commit substantial monetary resources for global climate action is the most emblematic example of this timidity.

Tyrone Hall, PhD, is an advisor to the Alliance of Small Island States, and a post-doctoral climate policy and communications researcher at York University. These are his own views.

The post How to make the Green Climate Fund a better force for change appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF), which was created to help poor countries curb their emissions and cope with the impacts of climate change was seeking fresh contributions to replenish its funding, due to run-out at the end of the year.

A total of 27 countries raised $9.8 billion at a pledging conference in Paris to fund green projects for the 2020-2023 period – including 4% in zero-interest loans. That was less than the $10.3bn donors promised for the first period to 2020 and not enough to fund the $15bn pipeline of projects identified by the GCF as of December 2018.

As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative

In 2014, under Barack Obama’s administration, the US pledged $3bn to the fund – the biggest pledge to the fund. Donald Trump reneged on the US commitment to the tune of $2bn.

Both the US and Australia said they would not pledge new money to the GCF, leaving smaller European countries along with Japan, Canada and New Zealand to compensate for a $3.2bn hole. They fell around half a billion short.

To bridge the gap, 13 countries announced a doubling or more of their contributions: Germany, Norway, France, UK, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark, Iceland, Poland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Ireland and Monaco.

Before the conference, the GCF said contributions totalling between $9bn and $10bn would be “a big success” after 16 countries pledged $7.4bn in the lead up.

Chile explodes – Climate Weekly

Praising the meeting’s outcome, Yannick Glemarec, GCF executive director, told reporters: “We came to Paris wondering whether this conference would be a success or a big success. We managed to get to nearly $10bn but I can’t say it was easy,” citing countries’ “important budgetary constraints”.

“We are honoured by the global community’s confidence in the fund’s ability to support countries and communities to raise and realise their climate ambitions,” he added.

New Zealand announced a fivefold increase of its contributions, with a pledge of $15 million and Slovenia was a first time donor to the fund.

Japan renewed its previous $1.5bn commitment. Russia, which gave $3m in 2014, was present at the pledging conference, but did not promise any money without ruling out contributing to the fund at a later date.

The pledging conference took place a day after Russian president Vladimir Putin hosted dozens of African heads of states in the resort town of Sochi on the Black Sea to discuss prospective energy and infrastructure deals, largely with the oil, gas and nuclear industries.

Rachel Kyte, the former UN secretary general’s special representative for sustainable energy, congratulated the GCF for “a big lift”.

The post Green Climate Fund replenishment fails to fill hole left by Trump’s US appeared first on Climate Home News.

In Paris, France, rich and developed countries met to replenish the Green Climate Fund. The UN fund was created as a carrot to convince developing countries, which have little historic responsibility for climate change, to curtail their greenhouse gas emissions.

With existing funds expected to run-out by the end of the year, the GCF’s two-day pledging conference sought to raise at least $9 billion of new cash by Friday to finance green projects in poor countries during the period 2020-2023.

Speaking ahead of the GCF pledging conference, Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GCF, told Climate Home News the fund’s objective was “for countries not to have to chose between today and tomorrow”, between meeting energy needs and cutting emissions, but to integrate climate action and economic development.

Chile: Massive protests and disruption ahead of trade and UN climate summits

New contributions to the fund totalling between $9bn and $10bn would be “a big success”, he said, and would “send a positive signal to developing countries”.

But many African leaders, the continent where 600 million lack access to electricity and the fund’s cash could make the most difference, were 2,900km from Paris, courting a very different opportunity on the shores of the Black Sea.

Dozens of African heads of state, including the leaders of Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana, along with ministers and thousands of business leaders arrived in the resort town of Sochi, to strengthen Russia-Africa cooperation and discuss prospective military, infrastructure and energy deals, largely focused on the oil, gas and nuclear industries.

The two-day summit, led by Russian president Vladimir Putin and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was the first Russia-Africa cooperation conference. It is a signal of Putin’s intent to compete for African business with China’s massive Belt and Road investment project.

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Opening the summit on Wednesday, Putin hailed Africa as “one of the cool centres of economic growth” and encouraged “building close business ties” in countries across the continent.

Making no mention of climate change, Putin praised the expanding work of Russian oil and gas companies Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil in Africa and the creation of a nuclear industry in Egypt and Nigeria. “We are most certainly going to support their plans at the government level,” he said.

Russian companies are currently developing oil and gas-fields in Egypt, Mozambique, Algeria, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Angola. Russian total trade with African countries reached $20bn last year, a small amount compared with China’s $204bn the same year.

Egyptian president el-Sisi said Russia was “a reliable partner for the African continent” and welcomed investments in the development and infrastructure sectors that the continent needs. “We regard this forum as a platform to develop the relationship for mutual investment and cooperation,” he added.

Theo Neethling, head of political studies at the University of the Free State in South Africa, said: “Survival and developmental politics are much higher on Africa’s agenda than green politics.

“African states view Beijing and Moscow as partners – albeit senior partners – that could provide much-needed funding without any strings attached pertaining to democracy or human rights.”

Wealthy country’s commitment to delivering green finance is not viewed with the same level of trust. Rich countries have promised to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year from a variety of sources by 2020. The OECD estimates that flow reached $71.2bn in 2017 (a number Oxfam has called “grossly overestimate[d]”), but still admits rich countries are not on track meet the goal.

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Even if contributions to the GCF at the Paris summit reach the $10bn mark, it would be less than donors’ initial $10.3bn pledge to the fund for the previous period to 2020. It would also not be enough to fund the existing $15bn pipeline of projects seeking assistance as of December 2018.

The US and Australia, which collectively pledged $3.2bn last time around (although Donald Trump’s US reneged to the tune of $2bn), have said they would offer nothing in 2019. Other countries’ increased contributions have not yet filled the hole.

Sixteen countries have already promised to deliver $7.4bn. Germany, Norway, France, UK, Sweden, South Korea, Denmark and Iceland announced a doubling of their contributions. Others like Japan, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland Portugal and New Zealand are yet to make a contribution. Russia is one of the 25 delegations participating in the pledging conference. It gave $3m in 2014.

With clean technologies becoming increasingly cheaper, climate advocates hope development in Africa will proceed along a less-carbon intensive pathway than Europe, the US, Russia or even China.

If Russia is cutting oil and gas deals in Sochi, “they are no friend of Africa,” Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, told CHN, warning against the continent becoming “the dumping ground for other countries’ fossil fuel technology”.

“The GCF has become the most significant climate funder in Africa,” said Adow. “This funding is vital in diverting us from a path towards climate catastrophe towards one where the poorest people can have access to clean energy.”‘

But this vision is in danger of being outcompeted. Crispus Mugambi, resilience and climate change manager at Care Kenya, told CHN the money pledged to the GCF was “a drop in the ocean” compared to developing countries’ existing needs. This week, the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All issued a major report finding investment for electricity in sub-Saharan Africa was “alarmingly low” and had fallen in several countries.

“Africa probably needs hundreds of billions of dollars to be able to develop in a climate sensitive manner,” said Mugambi.

“There is common sense that development with clean energy is the way to go but African governments are trying to develop their economies with resources at their disposal,” he added.

The post As rich countries slow walk green finance, Putin offers Africa an alternative appeared first on Climate Home News.

There are other various international and local sources of climate finance, but the GCF remains the largest and is specifically designed for direct access by developing countries, promoting a paradigm shift towards low emission and climate-resilient development.

The main concern surrounding the fund now is its replenishment. To date, the GCF has raised $10.3 billion, most of which were pooled in from, or pledged, by developed countries – or those considered to have caused global warming and climate change, and those urged by the Paris Agreement to take the lead in mobilising climate finance for developing countries.

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Now at the upcoming pledging conference in Paris this October 28-29, such mobilisation must progress beyond previous efforts.

A quick look at the GCF website shows that it has 111 projects in its portfolio, with $5.2bn allocated for approved projects, which, with co-financing (or pledges from the requesting country party to ascertain sustainability and ownership of the project), are valued at $18.7bn.

With more than half of the funds already granted or set aside for approved projects (more, after the board meeting this November), deducting also the operating costs of running the GCF secretariat, board meetings, and other activities and support programs, perhaps, there wouldn’t be much left in the fund – unless, of course, new pledges and donations come in.

This is a major concern for developing countries, especially for the Philippines and other countries that have yet to receive grants from the GCF. However, there’s a good chance that the Philippines might finally secure funding this year aside from existing readiness support, following the government’s issuance of three no-objection letters to one public and two private proposals for projects on coastal resilience as well as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

As we near 2020, the issue of replenishment is becoming more and more prominent. It is the year by which the developed countries committed to jointly mobilize $100bn in climate finance per year – a promise made way back in 2009, at the 15^th UN climate talks (Cop15) held in Copenhagen, which was formalized a year later at Cop16 in Cancun (which also decided on the establishment of the GCF) and was later on reaffirmed in the Paris Agreement.

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A decade since then, however, I beg to ask: Will the developed countries be able to keep their promise?

In 2016 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development did a study that conservatively affirmed developed countries were indeed on target by 2020.

The analysis, however, came out three years ago, and the global political landscape has changed since then. A few leaders from rich nations – such as United States president Donald Trump, who declared they would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, as well as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who said last year they would not provide any more funding to the GCF – have seemingly curtailed the global progress on climate ambition and action.

The response of several US governors to form the United States Climate Alliance is a good sign the country can still meet its responsibilities to the Paris Agreement. Germany, Norway, France, and the UK have also committed to double their respective contributions to the GCF, while Ireland and Canada also indicated it would provide additional financing

Developing countries remember those who stood by their words and delivered their commitments, in the same way that we will hold into account those who just stood by. We are making progress, but more needs to be done.

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While every year has been a critical year for the GCF since it started operations in 2015, there will be greater expectation from the fund in the coming years as developing countries further anticipate increased mobilization of climate finance.

In order to realise its full potential, the GCF must urgently address the nuances and gaps in their financing policies, strategic direction, and investment criteria. Ultimately, they must increase the efficiency of their operations and its impact and support to developing countries.

Augmenting the GCF secretariat and increasing the frequency of board meetings are some earlier suggestions that need to be revisited. But whatever adjustments the fund may need, it must continue being a capable and service-oriented climate finance mechanism, especially in this time of climate crisis when developing countries grapple for any and all available climate finance they can get to stay alive.

Loren Legarda is an alternate member for Asia Pacific of the Green Climate Fund board. A former senator, she is now a deputy speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, where she represents Antique province.

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President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement in the final hours of the meeting of G7 leaders in Biarritz, on France’s Atlantic coast, on Monday evening.

France’s pledge to contribute $1.71 billion to the UN flagship climate fund came after the UK also promised to double its contribution to $1.75bn.

During the G7 meeting, Canada announced it would provide $224 million to the fund – matching the country’s previous offering.

Last year, both Germany and Norway committed to double the amount of money they would put into the fund, bringing the total amount of new money pledged to just under $6bn, according to a tracker by the World Resources Institute.

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The fund was created as a carrot to convince poor countries, that are not historically responsible for climate change, to commit to curb their pollution under the Paris Agreement.

Wealthy countries initially promised $10.3bn in start-up capital to the fund in 2014. Currency fluctuations and Donald Trump refusing to deliver $2bn of the US pledge has yet seen the GCF receive only $7bn in contributions. So far, more than $5.2bn has been allocated to projects to help vulnerable countries cut emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The GCF has now asked rich countries for further contributions to raise cash for the next three years. This is due to culminate in a pledging conference in the autumn.

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Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GCF, said doubling contributions to the fund was “vital to support developing countries to raise and realise climate ambitions”. The fund has $15bn worth of outstanding projects requesting assistance.

The replenishment of the GCF was made a priority at the G7 summit over the weekend and is also high on the agenda of the UN climate action summit convened by secretary general António Guterres next month in New York.

A G7 statement summarising discussions on climate change, biodiversity and oceans indicated that other G7 countries, which also include Italy, Japan and the US, “are in the process of finalising their contributions”.

UN special envoy on climate change Luis Alfsonso de Alba, told reporters that organisers of the UN climate action summit were “quite satisfied with the developments, especially on the replenishment of the GCF” – welcoming European countries’ pledge to double their contributions.

While the announcements have been welcomed by observers, the gap between the money pledged and what is needed to help developing countries tackle climate change remains significant.

Rich countries have pledged to mobilise $100bn a year from a variety of sources by 2020 to help vulnerable countries cope with climate change – a target that is yet far from being met.

In a statement to CHN, the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) warned that “to even credibly approximate the goal of $100bn, both our development partners and the private sector must act decisively”.

“The rapidly narrowing window of opportunity for effective climate action demands greater ambition and swift ramping up of contributions from other larger emitters,” it added.

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Jan Kowalzig, an expert on climate politics at Oxfam’s German branch, warned that while doubling pledges to reach a target of $15bn in contributions “may sound ambitious”, it is in fact “a modest target when considering that the GCF secretariat assumes its own programming capacity could grow by $5bn a year”.

The replenishment of the GCF is “only one step” in meeting the $100bn goal and “additional steps are needed to close the gap”, he told CHN.

“What we now see is that rich countries, struggling to fulfil their promise, are inflating the amount they provide,” he warned, adding that countries were “grossly overestimating” the climate relevance of the funds provided.

Kowalzig also warned against contributions to the fund in the form of loans, describing them as “highly problematic” and “deeply unfair”, pointing to the fact cyclone-hit Mozambique has been forced to accept loans to rebuild the country.

He added that loans reduced the GCF’s flexibility in allocating money for projects and did not satisfy rich countries’ commitments under the Paris Agreement to meet developing countries’ cost of action.

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Following intense backroom negotiations, the UN flagship climate fund’s board agreed at 3am on a voting system to deploy when consensus fails.

A year after a public boardroom meltdown, the move signals stronger collaboration between rich and poor country representatives, as they seek a fresh injection of funds.

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“This was a huge trust-building exercise and acknowledgement that the future of the fund is better built together than against each other,” wrote Liane Schalatek, an observer from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, by Skype from the GCF headquarters in Songdo, South Korea. “‘Historic’ is probably correct.”

Some of the countries hardest hit by climate change had already aligned with donor governments in calling for governance reforms, to get money flowing faster.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran were the last hold-outs, raising concerns a voting system could disadvantage the developing world. The board is drawn half from donor and half from recipient countries, but the latter bloc is more diverse: China has different interests to Chad.

At the same time, emerging economies had an incentive to end the veto power of individuals. In 2018, the US board member was able to block a Chinese project – despite his country reneging on a pledged $2 billion contribution. In 2017, the UK refused to back grants for rural development in Argentina and Paraguay.

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A breakout group of eight board members thrashed out rules allowing decisions to be made with an 80% majority, a higher threshold than the two thirds originally proposed. Consensus remains the preferred option.

“It was encouraging to see the board come together and fulfil this mandate from its founding instrument,” said Niranjali Amerasinghe of the World Resources Institute (WRI), adding that attention must now turn to “an ambitious replenishment” of the fund’s cash reserves.

The board approved $267 million of finance towards ten projects, taking its total commitments to $5.23 billion. It is reaching the bottom of its $10.3bn starting capital faster than expected, due to currency fluctuations and the US withholding money.

Now the fund is looking to wealthy countries for further contributions, with a pledging summit in autumn to raise cash for the next three years. Germany and Norway have committed to doubling their input, while others indicated they first wanted to see the initial round had been well used.

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A performance review presented at the latest meeting struck an optimistic tone. The fund “has achieved a lot” in four years and “has the requisite capacity, learning disposition, leadership and structures for being an agent of change,” wrote independent GCF evaluator Jyotsna Puri.

Among its recommendations were to channel more funds direct to the front lines of climate impacts and to strengthen the role of the private sector.

One of the main criticisms of the fund from recipients is that it is slow to release money, even after it has been approved. Analysis by Joe Thwaites, a researcher at WRI, before the latest meeting found the GCF had disbursed 10% of approved funding in its first four years of operation, compared to 17% for the Climate Investment Funds (Cifs), 26% for the Global Environment Facility and 42% for the Adaptation Fund.

Source: Joe Thwaites

Thwaites said part of the problem lay with partner organisations. For example, the World Bank took three and a half years from getting accredited to signing project deals.

The GCF secretariat prefers to cite the value of projects “under implementation” – $2.41bn compared to $0.51bn – on the basis many do not get all their money upfront and are phased over a longer period.

“Things are improving,” according to Thwaites, and by the end of the year GCF performance is expected to catch up with the Cifs.

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With a federal election looming, the government followed up on prime minister Scott Morrison’s threat not to “tip money into that big climate fund”.

Since 2015, Australia has given $187m to the fund, which finances projects in the developing world that cut emissions or promote resilience to climate impacts. The budget document said Australia made its “final” contribution of $19.2m in December.

Around a third of Australia’s overseas development budget is spent in the climate-vulnerable Pacific. But the Australia Institute’s Richie Merzian said multilateral institutions, such as the Green Climate Fund, were able to leverage private investment in projects in “a way that the Australian Government has struggled to do”.

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“The GCF has co-financing capabilities and regional coverage that Australia couldn’t possibly provide,” he said. Merzian also noted that Australia’s overall aid budget was dropping when measured against the growing economy.

In a statement, Oxfam Australia said the budget was a “catastrophic failure of leadership in the face of the climate crisis – which is out of step with a majority of Australians – and growing inequality and it undermines the future of our Pacific neighbours”.

The Green Climate Fund formed part of a compact between poor and rich countries that was the basis for the Paris climate agreement. Having spent nearly half of its original $10.3bn allocation, the fund has signalled it intends to start raising new finance from developed countries this year.

By the time the hat is passed around, Australia’s position may have changed. The country is expected to hold elections next month, with the major parties sharply divergent on climate policy.

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In a speech last year, shadow foreign minister Penny Wong said “it goes without saying” Labor would “be willing to work with” multilateral organisations including the Green Climate Fund to combat global warming.

This week, Labor gave an indication of the domestic climate package it will take to the poll. The partial release indicated it will try to revive the national energy guarantee, formerly a government scheme that saw Australia’s last prime minster overthrown in favour of Morrison.

The Labor version is more stringent and would cut emissions in the electricity sector 45% on 2005 levels by 2030. (The now-dropped coalition government plan aimed for 26%.) Labor also pledged that half of all new cars sold would be electric by 2030.

Polling puts the opposition Labor party, with leader Bill Shorten, in the lead. The government, on the defensive, has called Labor’s climate policy a “Trojan horse for a carbon tax” and announced tax cuts in a bid to win back voters.

In its budget, the Liberal-National coalition announced $2bn over 15 years to finance what treasurer Josh Frydenberg called “practical emission reduction activities”. These include funding farmers and indigenous land managers to store carbon in the soil.

“Through our measures, as we have done in the past, we will beat our international emission reduction targets,” Frydenberg said on Tuesday.

Australia’s emissions grew last year by 0.9%, according to the latest government data. The country has been criticised for using a system of pollution credits from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to meet its targets while allowing real emissions to continue rising. Labor has said it would close that loophole.

The Australian Conservation Foundation’s chief executive officer Kelly O’Shanassy said the scheme needed reform to close loopholes that could see some of that money spent upgrading old fossil fuel plants.

The amount available for climate projects pales in comparison to fuel tax breaks for businesses, O’Shanassy added. “In this budget the government plans to spend $4.36 subsidising pollution for every dollar it spends on climate action.”

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At present, all 24 members of the Green Climate Fund board have effective veto power. The US used this in October to block a Chinese bid for a green development loan. Several policy issues have been repeatedly deferred due to lack of consensus.

As the fund prepares to solicit a fresh round of contributions, a long-running debate flared anew at a board meeting in Songdo, South Korea on Tuesday.

Representatives of vulnerable communities joined rich world voices in calling for governance reform, to make money flow faster. Emerging economies, on the other hand, resisted what was seen as an attempt by donors to impose conditions on the provision of climate finance.  

“For us [small island developing states] the urgency of addressing climate change is not an abstract concept but a lived reality that gets worse every day,” said Ronald Jumeau of the Seychelles.

“In this context, the board has the responsibility to apply the most efficient decision-making procedures possible. Decision-making should not become a barrier to the delivery of climate finance, which hurts not only the fund and its reputation, but more importantly the fund’s recipients and vulnerable countries the most.”

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Saudi Arabia’s representative railed against any kind of voting system, arguing it would only weaken the developing world’s hand.

“The voting system will do nothing but put you in an inferior position,” Ayman Shasly told his peers. “You will be influenced by your capitals to vote one way or another.”

To industrialised countries, his message was that no strings should be attached to funding. “They caused damage; it is time to pay back for that damage,” he said. “It is not your money – this is something you owe to developing countries.”

While Germany and Norway have already committed to doubling their cash injections, Australia and the US are opting out. Others, like Japan, have indicated their willingness to chip in depends on the fund’s performance.

Swedish board member Lars Roth claimed the requirement to make board decisions unanimously was partly to blame for the replenishment process starting 18 months later than initially envisaged. “These governance flaws, they need to be addressed,” he said. “We shouldn’t delay this any further.”

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The proposal on the table was to be able to pass decisions with a two-thirds majority. Some board members expressed reservations about the precise mechanism, but most showed they were willing to find a compromise.

Nicaragua’s Paul Oquist, who unsuccessfully sought to broker a deal as co-chair in 2018, proposed applying a voting system at least to project decisions, if not policies.

“I wholeheartedly agree with Ayman that we need to keep politics out of this board as much as possible,” he said. “But one country being able to veto another’s project for no reason… is not the way to keep politics out of this conversation.”

China’s blocked project, to mobilise investment in clean energy, public transport and other urban projects in Shandong province, had been up for consideration again in Songdo, but was withdrawn.

Nine projects were approved on Wednesday, including a controversial scheme to pay Brazil for reducing deforestation in 2014 and 2015. Campaigners argued there was no guarantee those reductions would be sustained, as tree clearance rates have since risen.

“It’s like rewarding someone for having quit smoking for a few months, even though they are still smoking today,” Thomas Fatheuer of the Heinrich Böll Foundation told Mongabay before the meeting.

Other successful bids included fast-tracked grants to make communities in Benin and Namibia more resilient to the impacts of climate change, and $100 million to boost solar power in Nigeria.

The board meeting resumes on Thursday. A conference to pledge new funds is provisionally planned for October.

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Yannick Glemarec joins the flagship fund from UN Women. He previously worked on environmental finance at the UN Development Programme.

Glemarec was selected from a shortlist of three white men, beating World Bank official Ede Ijjasz-Vásquez and GCF interim chief Javier Manzanares.

He will coordinate with economist Johannes F Linn, who was named by the board to steer a replenishment drive for the fund.

Launched with $10.2 billion of pledges from developed countries, the GCF is a pillar of international cooperation to tackle climate change. Its coffers are running low after the US reneged on $2bn of a $3bn pledge.

Germany and Norway have already committed to doubling their initial contributions, while other donors first want to see governance reforms.

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GCF board co-chair Nagmeldin Goutbi Elhassan Mahmoud, of Sudan, said Glemarec’s experience would help the fund in raising cash and “to increase our climate impact in developing countries”.

His British counterpart Josceline Wheatley said Glemarec was selected from a “highly qualified pool of applicants,” adding: “His experience and dynamism greatly impressed the board, and we are delighted to nominate him to lead the secretariat.”

Prior to the decision, Colombian climate finance expert Paula Caballero, who reported to Glemarec at UNDP, praised his record. He was “way ahead of the curve on climate issues,” she told E&E Climate Wire, and “technically very solid, visionary and a solid manager”.

Having worked on the selection of the last #GCF Executive Director, and been involved in GCF for years, it’s great to see a champion of women with decades of development finance.

Hopefully he can also work creatively (outside just UN frame) to fill GCF leadership gap #auspol

— Richie Merzian (@RichieMerzian) February 25, 2019

Japan’s argument that as the biggest donor, it had the “largest responsibility” to make the fund run smoothly, rankled with the developing world. Its candidate, diplomat Kenichi Suganuma, did not make the shortlist.

Some sources expressed disappointment that female contender Mafalda Duarte, head of the Climate Investment Funds, was overlooked. Egyptian former board member Omar El-Arini told Climate Wire the omission “says much about gender balance”.

The selection panel was made up of seven men and one woman, reflecting a male skew on the full board. It took its decision ahead of a three-day board meeting in Songdo, South Korea, where the fund is headquartered.

Glemarec inherits an organisation under pressure to show results amid fractious boardroom politics. His predecessor Howard Bamsey quit abruptly last July, at a tumultuous board meeting that failed to deliver any substantive decisions. Broadly, the tension is between developed countries trying to attach conditions to funding and developing countries arguing it is for them to decide how the money is spent.

At its next meeting in October, the board overcame its divisions to launch a replenishment process and approve 19 projects worth $1 billion. However the sticky issue of how to make decisions in the absence of consensus was not resolved and will come up again this week. Several policy matters have been repeatedly deferred due to lack of unanimity.

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Fijian prime minister Frank Bainimarama told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, “Here in Fiji, climate change is no laughing matter”.

Bainimarama is a seasoned operator who has outlasted seven Australian prime ministers and no one missed his reference. Former prime minister Tony Abbott was once caught by a stray microphone laughing at a joke about “water lapping at [Pacific] doors”.

Bainimarama went on. “I urged your predecessor repeatedly to honour his commitment to clean energy.”

“From where we are sitting, we cannot imagine how the interests of any single industry can be placed above the welfare of Pacific peoples and vulnerable people in the world over,” lamented the Cop23 president at their meeting in the Fijian capital of Suva.

Morrison has only been in the role for half a year, having toppled Malcolm Turnbull in a leadership battle fought in part over climate policy and whether to even have one.  The new PM Morrison is of the no-climate policy persuasion.

Australia won’t give money to Green Climate Fund, says PM

Yes, this is the same bloke who brought a lump of coal into the Australian parliament, telling everyone not to be afraid.

Despite overseeing Australia’s steadily increasing emissions and having no policy to reduce them, Morrison claims the country will meet emissions reduction targets “at a canter”.

Worse still, Morrison is doing all he can to subsidise Australia’s fossil fuel industries, which are putting the Pacific’s welfare at risk. He is rushing to fund construction or refurbishment of gas and coal-fired power stations, before a likely May election. Morrison is tipped to lose this election, so he is anxious to lock in more coal by signing binding contracts before leaving office.

This is despite analysis suggesting that new coal power in Australia is actually more expensive than renewables with limited back-up storage by Australia’s public science agency, CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Regulator.

There’s more Australian policy that worries the Pacific – fossil fuel exports. Pacific leaders have long called for restrictions on fossil fuel development, particularly a moratorium on new coal mines, an idea Australia, the world’s largest coal exporter, does not support.

Undeterred, the Morrison government is encouraging new drilling for oil in the Great Australian Bight, digging more coal out of Queensland (including support for the Adani coal mine) and fracking oil and gas in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. If Australia’s LNG ambitions are reached, it will rival Qatar as the largest gas exporter in the world – adding to its infamous position as the largest supplier of coal.

Knowing all this, Morrison didn’t come empty handed to Fiji. He brought a few trinkets to make up for genuine concern, including an A$2 billion Pacific Infrastructure Fund.

The problem is that A$1.5bn will take the form of concessional loans, which most indebted Pacific island countries can’t afford. Morrison’s colleague and former minister for the Pacific Concetta Fierravanti-Wells was so appalled she published an opinion piece (whilst he was in Fiji) blasting him for the ‘debt-trap diplomacy’. The other AUD$500 million will be grants, cut from existing Australian aid projects. For a A$4billion aid program that has already been trimmed – it is cutting into bone. Recall that Morrison had already shutdown Australia’s support to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which he decided without the advice (or even courtesy of informing) his Department of Foreign Affairs (DFat).

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So it is with some irony that on this trip to Fiji, Morrison announced that DFat deputy secretary Ewen McDonald would head up the newly created Australian Office for the Pacific. McDonald was the co-chair of the GCF board for three of the last six years and helped champion Pacific interests in the GCF, garnering the region’s respect. The capable and well-respected diplomat will have his work cut out for him managing the relationship under Morrison’s direction.

Bainimarama’s speech during Morrison’s visit wasn’t just for the Aussie PM but all Australians. Climate change will impact far and wide, including “Australia as well” he mentioned, “where soaring temperatures have reached record highs in several major cities just this week.” Working from Australia’s capital Canberra, which hit 40C-plus for the third day in a row, the message is resonating here. It’s likely the Fiji PM knows the Australian public is on his side – three in four Australians think the country is already experiencing the effects of global warming, like more heatwaves and extremely hot days, according to the Australia Institute’s 2018 Climate of the Nation report.

Most Australians would agree that climate change is certainly no laughing matter. Given the Australian public’s support for climate action, even for phasing out coal, the next Australian election might at least give the Pacific something to smile about.

Richie Merzian is the climate and energy programme director at the Australia Institute. He can be found on Twitter @RichieMerzian

The post The ‘laughing matter’ of Australia’s relationship with the Pacific appeared first on Climate Home News.

The executive director vacancy at the Green Climate Fund has been openly advertised, with a 12 December deadline for applications. Japan’s foreign ministry took the unusual move this week of publicly nominating an experienced diplomat, Kenichi Suganuma, to the role.

Kaoru Magosaki, a climate change official at Japan’s foreign ministry, told Climate Home News the country wanted to see its $1.5 billion contribution spent wisely.

“Given that we are the largest donor… in that sense we have the largest responsibility to secure the fund’s smooth operation, both in regards to the international community and those who are taxpayers as well,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of Cop24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland.

Touting Japan’s financial clout is provocative, however, on a board set up to give developing countries an equal say on where the money goes.

South African board member Zaheer Fakir said it was for the board to select the executive director based on agreed criteria. The amount of money contributed “holds no weight” in that decision, he told CHN.

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It comes at a critical time for the fund, which is a beacon of cooperation between rich and poor countries to tackle climate change. After a July meeting collapsed in acrimony, the board regrouped in October and agreed to launch a fundraising drive.

The next executive director will be under pressure to slash paperwork demands, speed up the flow of money and show results – all while navigating fraught boardroom politics. In parallel, the board is set to appoint a “facilitator” for the replenishment process.

The GCF reached the bottom of its $10.2bn start-up capital faster than expected, after Donald Trump reneged on $2bn of the US pledge and currency fluctuations hit the value of the remainder. It has allocated $4.6bn to projects in the developing world that cut carbon or build resilience to the impacts of climate change.

Germany was the first to pledge new cash, doubling its contribution to €1.5 billion ($1.7bn). Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, on the other hand, has declared he will not “tip money” into the fund.

Japan is reserving judgment until it sees a performance review, said Magosaki. “We have to secure the accountability of the secretariat. They will probably have to speak out a bit more about their achievements. We have not heard back quite enough for the justification of $1.5 billion yet.”

The moment of truth will come in the third quarter of 2019, when developed countries will be expected to put up money at a pledging summit.

Meanwhile Russia is preparing to make its first donation, an adviser to the delegation told CHN.

As an “economy in transition”, Russia is not obliged to provide climate finance to the developing world under the UN framework. For years, it has been dangling the prospect of a voluntary contribution to the GCF.

Now the country is finalising the legal arrangements to transfer “a few million” dollars to the fund in the next few days, said the adviser, who asked not to be named. That would give it a say in the discussions.

While he could not say whether Russia was seeking a seat on the fund’s board, the adviser suggested the country was well placed to mediate rich-poor disputes. “What we saw [in July] was a standoff between one side of the table and the other side of the table and we really think that Russia… can help to bridge the gap,” he said.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres expressed support for reform and replenishment at a press conference in Katowice on Tuesday. “The GCF needs improved management to be more effective, but it also needs funds,” he said.

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Following a meeting in Brussels, the ministers emphasised that public finance alone “can never be sufficient” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change. Public policy must therefore clear the way for sustainable investments from the private sector, they said.

The European Union funnelled €20.4 billion ($23bn) in public money towards limiting climate change and adapting to its effects in 2017, making it the largest contributor in the world, the ministers noted. They reaffirmed the bloc’s commitment to continue raising public and private climate finance as part of the developed world’s pledge to shore up $100bn per year by 2020.

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Strong transparency rules underpinning the Paris climate agreement will help keep track of the progress countries make towards their pledges, including for financial aid, the ministers stressed.

The transparency framework is one of the most contentious issues in negotiations ahead of next month’s Cop24 summit, where countries must agree on rules for meeting the Paris Agreement. The US and EU want to impose strong reporting and monitoring rules across the developed and developing worlds. Emerging economies, including China, want looser responsibilities than the rich side.

The EU is also committed to replenishing the UN’s Green Climate Fund, which puts money into projects in developing countries, the economy and finance ministers said. The US has pulled the Obama administration’s $2bn pledge towards the initial $10bn pot, and Australia said it is unlikely to add more money after this year.

In addition, the ministers urged multilateral development banks (MDBs) to do their part and “adopt responsible investment policies and to phase out the financing of coal power plants”.

The Council of the EU “calls on MDBs to speed up the alignment of their activities with the objective of making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development,” the ministers said.

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In a sign of US-China tensions spilling into the climate finance arena, Mathew Haarsager, a US treasury official, vetoed a $100 million loan for green development in Shandong province.

He and Japan’s Hiroshi Matsuura raised concerns about the accountability of sub-projects and potential use of funds for research and development of commercial products.

The $1.5 billion programme also already had enough sources of cash, Haarsager argued: “We don’t see a compelling case for GCF financing being additional here.” The Asian Development Bank, French and German development banks, Shandong local governments and the private sector are named as co-financers.

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Its defenders said it was exactly the kind of “transformational” initiative the GCF should support. Shandong has the highest energy consumption in China, largely fuelled by coal. By mobilising investments in clean energy, urban transport and other climate projects, the programme is predicted to save 50-75 million tonnes of carbon dioxide compared to business-as-usual.

After consultations, Matsuura said he would not stand against the proposal, leaving the US in sole opposition.

Tosi Mpanu Mpanu, a Congolese board member representing African countries, said US opposition was motivated by trade tensions between the superpowers.

“If you want to have an impact and a transformational role, you cannot do better [than the Shandong proposal], but it was nonetheless blocked by the US,” he told Climate Home News. “It can create a little bit of distrust of the good faith of some of the parties around the table.”

Failure to resolve the concerns sent the “wrong signal” to China, tweeted Bangladeshi climate finance expert and observer Shamir Shehab.

Very pleased that the #GCFund Board has approved over USD 1 billion of new projects and programmes to support #ClimateAction in developing countries and formally launched the Fund’s first replenishment https://t.co/sgrpurQaWA Important signal ahead of #COP24 in December pic.twitter.com/3F0DLXwlLX

— Patricia Espinosa C. (@PEspinosaC) October 21, 2018

Earlier in the meeting, the board considered a proposal that would have removed the ability of an individual member to veto decisions, but could not agree on a voting system that everyone considered fair. This apparently innocuous procedural issue has proved the “toughest nut to crack”, said co-chair Paul Oquist, defying resolution for five years.

These were hitches in a generally productive meeting that went some way to reassure climate watchers, following a complete breakdown in boardroom relations in July.

Australia won’t give money to Green Climate Fund, says PM

The board approved 19 projects worth $1 billion, including a slimmed-down version of a controversial water security project from oil-rich hosts Bahrain.

It agreed to trigger a fresh round of fundraising, with rich countries expected to deliver pledges at an event in autumn 2019. To inform that process, the board ordered a review of performance to date.

And recruitment for an executive director got the go-ahead, to replace Howard Bamsey, who quit abruptly at July’s troubled board meeting. The job advertisement was published on Monday.

good News! #GCFB21 decided to launch the first replenishment process of the @GCF_News. This is tailwind for a successful @COP24

— Norbert Gorißen (@gorissenn) October 20, 2018

Reaching agreement on fundraising, in particular, was seen as important to building trust ahead of UN negotiations on the Paris Agreement rulebook at Cop24 in December.

“[The] decision to initiate replenishment is key to ensure that the fund will be able to fulfil its mandate to channel climate finance to the most vulnerable countries,” said Norwegian board member Hans-Olav Ibrekk, in a statement. However, he noted the board still divides along developed-developing country lines, calling for more unity.

The decision to officially launch replenishment was “encouraging”, agreed Karma Tshering of Bhutan. He added: “We now need developed countries to step up and make significant pledges, so replenishment becomes a reality.”

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Some of the Green Climate Fund board members meeting in Bahrain thought so this morning. Because the Gulf state put forward a small, yet controversial project bid.

On the face of it, it is a small desert island asking for $10 million to manage its water in a changing climate. But if the proposal is approved Bahrain plans to pitch for more money to clean up wastewater from the oil and gas sector – a subsidy for the fossil fuels that made Bahrain rich. And an independent panel described its climate change rationale as “weak”.

The board split along the usual lines, with developed country members opposed and the developing world defending the project.

The Chinese delegate argued that the board should not squander precious time arguing over small project bids, but focus on policy. That is easier said than done. A policy proposal to, say, block finance to fossil fuel industries, would be no less contentious. At the time of writing, no decision on the bid had been made.

No consensus

Also kicked into the last day of the meeting is the latest attempt to lower the bar for making decisions. Two hours of discussion on Wednesday ended inconclusively. Five years in, the board has yet to settle on a voting system, meaning each member has an effective veto. Representatives from Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Egypt held out against a compromise proposed by the co-chairs.

Will they resolve these issues by the end of the meeting on Saturday? After July’s board meeting collapsed, there is unprecedented pressure on the fund to show it can deliver on its promise.

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa dropped in to give the board a pre-meeting pep talk. “When it comes to climate change, finance is about more than money… It’s about saving lives,” she said.

Some signs have been positive: they avoided an agenda fight and by Friday afternoon Bahrain time had approved four projects. The sticky issue of replenishment is still to come. Stay tuned for the outcome.

‘Despair’

Numbers crunched by the International Energy Agency are making chief Fatih Birol “despair”, he told a conference in Paris.

Global emissions are predicted to reach a record high in 2018, making the chances of holding temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C “weaker and weaker”.

Bill…ionaire

Bill Gates is here to help. The philanthropist, known for backing health and development initiatives, has thrown his weight behind two climate initiatives.

The Global Commission on Adaptation and Breakthrough Energy Europe launched at back-to-back events in Brussels, to tackle two pillars of the global warming challenge.

Stubb speech

One of the candidates to be next president of the European Commission has pledged to work towards a net-zero EU by 2045 – significantly less than current proposals.

“The EU must put decarbonisation at the heart of its programme,” said former Finnish prime minister Alex Stubb.

He is up against Germany’s Manfred Weber, who has not set out a position on climate change.

Frack fight

Three anti-fracking protesters have been freed from UK jail after an outcry over their 15-16 month sentences.

An appeals court said the prison term was “manifestly excessive”. They had been in custody for two weeks.

Meanwhile clean growth minister Claire Perry justified her government’s continued support for shale gas as “pragmatic policy”.

Activity restarted at a shale gas site in Lancashire at the same time as Perry promoted “Green GB” week.

Devolved Brexit

Wales and Scotland swiftly rejected the UK government’s “unacceptable” plan to set a carbon tax if the UK crashes out of the EU without a Brexit deal.

It confirms Sara Stefanini’s scoop last month that devolved administrations are unwilling to cede control to the treasury in Westminster.

This article was amended to clarify the Bahrain proposal for oil and gas wastewater clean up is part of a secondary funding bid not currently before the board.

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The fund’s last board meeting in July collapsed with no agreement on 11 project proposals, worth nearly $1bn, nor on how to raise a fresh round of contributions from rich countries. Since then, 10 project bids have been added to a packed agenda, and one deferred.

David Margonsztern, proponent of a green transport plan for Karachi, told Climate Home News something had to change.

“We definitely hope that the situation from the last board meeting won’t repeat itself again because that would be a disaster, not only for this project but for all projects that are being proposed,” he said.

His project, overseen by the Asian Development Bank, would bring a fast bio-fuelled bus service, bicycle lanes and green spaces to a congested 30km corridor in Pakistan’s biggest city.

Construction could start in 6-8 months, Margonsztern said, and “significantly improve” life for residents. “People are basically hanging from the doors or sitting on the roof [of buses] because demand is so high and the service is so poor,” he said: “By introducing bus rapid transit, it will be much better, much more efficient.”

What happens in the next few months will impact the future of the Paris Agreement and the global climate

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The GCF offered attractive financial terms, but its process was “very complex and cumbersome”, he added. “If at the end it was all for nothing because of political reasons, because the board cannot get its act together, of course it will be very frustrating.”

Other initiatives in line for support include geothermal energy in Indonesia, drought-proof farming in El Salvador and green urban development in Shandong – the first GCF bid from China.

If all the project bids are approved, it will take the value of funds committed to $4.6 billion. That may trigger a fundraising drive, depending on how the numbers are interpreted.

GCF policy is to formally start the replenishment process once 60% of initial contributions have been allocated. Norwegian board member Hans Olav Ibrekk tweeted that there had been “informal” discussions on the subject Tuesday, “but governance needs to improve”.

In Bahrain for #GCFund board meeting. Informal discussions on replenishment today. GCF is delivering. Resources nearly committed, improving project quality, strong pipeline but governance needs to improve. pic.twitter.com/l4PzNLA2K7

— Hans Olav Ibrekk (@HIbrekk) October 16, 2018

The fund was launched with $10.2bn. Against that baseline, the trigger point is some way off. But Donald Trump axed $2bn of the US pledge and currency fluctuations hit the value of the remainder. While there has been some reluctance to write off the outstanding US contribution, in practice it brings the 60% threshold closer.

Under a proposal presented to the board, a replenishment facilitator could be appointed to lay the groundwork ahead of a pledging conference in the third quarter of 2019. That would potentially coincide with UN chief Antonio Guterres’ planned climate summit in New York.

Meanwhile, some kind of performance review will be needed to convince donors to chip in again.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) argues there should be a framework to set minimum national contributions. “We need a formula that is based on objective criteria and should apply to all countries,” said senior associate and former GCF board member Jacob Waslander.

Based on historic emissions and national wealth per capita, WRI suggests the US should be contributing 46% of the target sum – hardly likely as long as Trump is in the White House.

Adding to the political headwinds, Australia’s new prime minister Scott Morrison said last week he will not “tip money into that big climate fund”.

8 takeaways from the Green Climate Fund meltdown

Amid these substantive questions, one procedural matter is key: whether the board can agree on how to disagree. Currently, it only takes one member to veto a decision. The co-chairs propose increasing that to five.

This is something that has been put on the agenda seven times and discussed three times in the past five years, but not resolved. Various voting systems have been mooted and rejected as unfair to one constituency or another. The latest offer on the table is to approve a decision unless one third of developed country or one third of developing country representatives object.

“This issue is fundamental to how the board works – there needs to be a way to move decisions if the board does not have consensus,” said WRI’s Niranjali Amerasinghe.

Climate leaders including the UN’s Patricia Espinosa, European Climate Foundation chief Laurence Tubiana and Green Growth Institute director Frank Rijsberman have stressed the importance of putting the GCF back on track.

Finance is critical to trust between rich and poor countries as negotiators thrash out a rulebook for the Paris Agreement, due to be finalised at Cop24 in Katowice, Poland, this December.

The Climate Markets & Investment Association, a coalition of private sector observers to the GCF, emphasised its importance to mobilising wider green finance. “The outcomes of [the Bahrain board meeting] are crucial to progress and encouraging private sector markets to meet the climate challenge,” they wrote in a letter to the board co-chairs dated Monday.

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