Green Climate Fund: Minister urges countries to fulfill commitments

Funds shortage causing delay in this year’s development plans


Our Correspondent May 03, 2015

ISLAMABAD: Climate change is still an issue taken lightly by most developed countries including United States, Japan and Canada who have missed their deadline for the contribution of Green Climate Fund donations, an analysis released couple of days ago by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) office revealed.  

The deadline set for the governments to send their contributions to GCF was April 30 which aims to collects US$4.7 billion for its cause.

However, the organisation is far short of achieving that goal which means it will have to suffer set backs by delaying its plans to back green energy projects in developing countries ahead of this year’s UN climate summit in Paris.

Head of UN’s flagship Green Bank had warned that it cannot initiate work as planned because leading backers including the US, Canada, Australia and Japan failed to deliver their funds.

According to the analysis so far 42 per cent of the $10 billion offered in 2014 has signed off, and US is overdue $1.5billion, Japan $750 million and Canada $130 million.

“The rich countries should fulfill their pledge of contributing $10 billion for climate finance to GCF which they made last year to meet costs of tackling climate change-induced disasters in poor countries for which the rich countries are responsible,” Climate Change Minister Senator Mushahidullah Khan said and urged rich countries at the UN-led donor conference last year to help developing countries tackle climate change.

“But, it is a matter of serious concern for developing countries that the rich countries have contributed only 42 per cent of the $10 billion promised so far,” Khan said.

“This means the GCF will have to hold back its plans to back green energy projects in developing countries including Pakistan ahead of the UN-led global climate summit to be held in Paris in December this year to agree a global climate deal aimed at capping carbon emissions to keep global emission rise to two degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” he cautioned.

However, the minister cautioned that with inadequate financial resources and lack of technology, the developing countries cannot fight the negative impacts of climate change, and protect their economies and people from it.

“Therefore, rich nations including Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, US and UK, should honour their combined $10 billion financial pledges as early as possible, which they made during last year’s conference,” he urged.

The GCF is a major part of a plan agreed in 2009, whereby rich countries agreed to mobilise $100 billion every year from 2020 from both public and private sources in the rich countries to help developing nations adapt to a changing global climate and reduce their own carbon emissions by boosting forest growth, energy-efficient urban transportation, shifting to renewable energies such as solar or wind and help them adapt to erratic weather patterns and their deleterious impacts.

The GCF --- established in 2010 within the framework of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) --- is a global funding mechanism to redistribute money from the developed to the developing world in order to assist the developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter debilitating impacts of climate change.

Over 198 countries — rich and poor — are signatories to the UNFCCC, which is an international environmental treaty that was opened for signature at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and came into force in 1994.

Khan highlighted that the GCF is only hope for developing countries including Pakistan to deal with debilitating impacts of climate change, particularly floods, sea-level rise, typhoons, cyclones, extreme heat-wave events, droughts and shifting/changing rainfall patterns.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4th, 2015. 

COMMENTS (1)

alfredopesto | 8 years ago | Reply absolute idiocy. this money will be squandered, stolen, doled out to friends of those in charge, and the little that is left will go to useless projects that will soon be forgotten. they will be laughing at us fools all the way to their off-shore bank accounts, as china builds 2 new coal fired electrical generating stations every week. naturally, these jokers won't give a peep about actual plans or ideas on what to spend the money on...just like obozocare, "we have to pass it to see what's in it!" (knowing snickers ensue)
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