US makes first payment of $500m to UN climate fund

The United States has made a first payment of $500 million to the United Nations' climate fund as part of its commitments from the Paris Climate Summit in December, the State Department said on Monday.

The Green Climate Fund is designed to support developing countries that are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change including rising sea levels, drought and floods and the US has pledged a total of $3 billion.

A State Department spokesman said: "This grant is the first step toward meeting the president’s commitment of $3 billion to the GCF, and shows that the United States stands squarely behind our international climate commitments."

The funding will go towards projects that improve adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts and will boost clean technology development.

Republican members of the US Congress had threatened to block the payments in a bid to undermine US involvement in the Paris Agreement.

However, US lawmakers approved the climate aid in December after they finalised the budget deal up to next 2017.

The centrepiece of the Obama administrations climate policy, the Clean Power Plan, was delayed in February after the Supreme Court ruled it would be frozen pending legal challenges.

The GCF will hold a board meeting this week at its headquarters in Songdo, South Korea, for the first time since the Paris climate summit in December when an international deal was agreed by 195 UN member states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent dangerous levels of global warming.

A total of $10.3 billion has been committed to the GCF so far and the fund has a target of spending $2.5 billion on projects this year.