Wait, what fund?

By Emily Bowie ’14

One of the things we skimmed over in class were the different funds created by the UNFCCC at various COPs in the past. While talking to delegates and NGOs over the past few days I found myself confused about the differences between the monetary sources I kept hearing. But then yesterday I got to talk to Dr. Erik Haites of Margaree Consultants Inc. in Canada. I asked him about the Green Climate Fund, one of the sources I had heard about, and he ended up giving me an overview of all of the funds connected with the UNFCCC.

GEF – The Global Environment Facility.

Article 3 of the UNFCCC Treaty Text states that “The developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations.”

Under this provision the GEF was created. It manages all funds, including the Least Developed Countries Fund for Climate Change (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF). The purpose of these funds is to provide grants to developing countries for projects relating to biodiversity, climate change, international waters, land degradation, ozone and organic pollutants.

Adaptation Fund

The Adaptation Fund was created at the COP15 because parties felt the need for another source of funding for the Kyoto Protocol’s mission, because the United States didn’t sign the Kyoto Protocol but was deeply involved in GEF. They wanted to keep the US out. This wasn’t really achieved however because the trustee for this fund is the World Bank and the secretariat is the GEF and the US has influence in both of these institutions.

Hillary’s $100billion / year.

At COP15 Obama helped create a $30billion “fast start” global climate fund by 2012 that Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, promised to expand to $100billion for each year after 2020. This money will be for forestry and adaptation for the “poorest and most vulnerable among us.” Her plan is to get the money from private, public, bilateral, multilateral and alternative sources of finance.

GCF – Green Climate Fund.

Also at COP15 in Copenhagen, the parties decided that another form of funding was necessary, separate from the GEF. They established the GCF as “an operating entitiy of the financial mechanism of the convention to support projects, programme, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD+, adaptation, capacity building, technology development and transfer.” The fund has the potential to channel up to $100billion for these initiatives. However, while the fund has been established the structure of the fund has not been designed, agreed upon or implemented. That is one of the purpose of this COP in Durban. So far negotiations are tense. Yesterday Saudi Arabia and Venezuela raised concerns about the funds proposed structure and the South African minister is undertaking informal consultations about how to work out these concerns. While there is currently debate over the GCF Dr. Haites voiced optimism for its implementation by the end of the COP. It is one of the areas of negotiation that may progress somewhere useful in these two weeks.

So, in case you were also confused, those are very short summaries of the main funds. Feel free to comment with further information or correct me if my information is incorrect. This is a new area of study for me and I would value commentary!