Climate Fund Committee have an historic task, says UN climate chief
As the first meeting of the Climate Fund Committee drew to a close in Mexico last week (28 - 29 April), UNFCCC climate chief Christiana Figueres said the committee had a crucial role to play in the progression towards Durban this December. Having decided the Green Climate Fund vision, the committee has yet to set out any concrete progress towards financing the scheme.
The committee set up to design the Climate Change Fund will have a historic task, according to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, despite the first Climate Fund meeting delivering little concrete progress.
The first meeting of the, already delayed by a month due to disagreements as to who should attend, closed on Friday (29 April) with an agreement that the fund should be efficient and effective through “clear accountability” and “good governance”.
Figueres said: “The members of the Transitional Committee from both developed and developing countries have set out an important vision for the fund as a central tool to assist countries to transform their economies towards a low-carbon, climate resilient future and to help them deal with damage due to climate change.”
The committee also underlined the role that other sources of finance from the private sector will play in order to scale up the climate fund to levels needed.
There is still speculation over how the majority of the funds will be raised, including international levies on aviation, shipping and carbon emissions all of which are set to be controversial.
The Green Climate Fund was part of a broad international agreement made in Cancun, Mexico last year, where industrialised countries approved a deal to mobilise $100 billion per year by 2020 through a mix of public and private sources. Figueres said the fund should become the window into a period of vastly greater funding for climate action in the developing world.
She said: “Every year, nations must work together to build better, more ambitious international responses in the common effort against human generated climate change. The launch of the Green Climate Fund is one of the significant decisions that nations reached in Cancun, which show that government can take repeated steps forward, including this year in Durban.
The Transitional Committee includes individuals from finance and climate change, from both the developed and developing world.
The meeting in Mexico elected three co-chairs; Mexican finance minister Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, South African minister in the Presidency for planning Trevor Manuel and Norway’s secretary at the Ministry of Finance Kjetil Lund.
They will now be tasked with overseeing the effective design for the new fund in time for approval at the UN Climate Conference in Durban in December 2011.
Image: UN Climate Talks | flickr
