Britain pledges £720m for UN climate fund to help developing countries
Europe, Asia and the US gathered a total of £3.5bn to help mitigate global warming in emerging economies
On Thursday the UK government pledged £720m to help developing nations improve their resilience to climate change with mitigation and adaptation measures.
The contribution came from funds put aside for international climate work and will go towards the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The cash is intended to assist emerging economies cut greenhouse gas emissions, and address the worsening effects of climate change that have been felt through heat-waves, mudslides and rising sea levels.
The announcement of the support for the fund is essential in the build up to the UN COP21 Climate Change Conference at the end of 2015 when a global binding deal is due to be agreed.
According to the GCF the UK’s contribution is equivalent to approximately 12 per cent of the total funding so far.
Overall funding to date stands at US$9bn (£5.74bn) based on pledges from 13 countries.
Alongside Britain, France and Germany promised US$1bn (£640m) each, Japan guaranteed US$1.5bn (£956m), and the United States pledged US$3bn (£1.91bn).
Australia, Canada and Italy are yet to announce their pledges to confronting the issues of climate change.
The top fund donors met on Thursday in Berlin to discuss the UN’s average target of US$10bn (£6.37bn) to be raised this year.
The GCF is a major part of a 2009 UN plan to increase financial flows from public and private sources to help developing nations tackle climate change to US$100 billion (£63.7bn) a year by 2020.
