UN summit a key test for global climate fund

A GLOBAL fund created to spearhead climate change financing faces a key test at a United Nations (UN) summit this week when it looks to the leaders of the industrialised world to stump up billions of dollars to fill its under-flowing coffers.

The climate summit in New York today is an opportunity for the developed world to demonstrate its financial commitment to securing a new, legally binding global climate deal with poorer countries in 2015.

The South Korea-based Green Climate Fund was born out of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009, when developed countries made a political commitment to mobilise $100bn annually for developing countries by 2020.

So far only Germany has made a substantial commitment to the fund, pledging about $1bn in July.

“We expect other countries to come forward at the summit and show they are leading the way in contributing to the fund,” said executive director Hela Cheikhrouhou.

“Early pledges, like Germany, or those who pledge in New York are incredibly important for trustbuilding,” she said.

The fund, which was formally established in 2010, has had a slow gestation period, and it took threeand-a-half years to reach a working consensus on what it should do and how it should go about it.

“That’s where people became impatient,” Ms Cheikhrouhou acknowledged. “It took a long time to agree on the foundational policies and operational guidelines.”

The fund has about $55m in its coffers, while UN Framework Convention on Climate Change head Christiana Figueres has called for an initial capitalisation of $10bn by the end of the year.

Norway is expected to reveal a “substantial contribution” at the summit.