Green Climate Fund urged to exclude fossils at COP20

• 9 years ago (2014-12-05)
• Junior Isles

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Environmental groups have demanded that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) exclude money for fossil fuels after an Associated Press investigation showed Japan bankrolled coal-fired power plants with money earmarked for fighting global warming.

On the sidelines of the ongoing UN COP20 climate talks in Lima, Brandon Wu of ActionAid USA, who is an observer on the fund’s board said: “If revelations that we are seeing with Japan would come to light with the GCF, it would be massively damaging to that institution.”

Rich countries have so far pledged about $10 billion to the fund, which is meant to become a key source of finance to help developing countries counter climate change.

The AP reported, however, that Japan included $1 billion in loans for new coal plants in Indonesia in the climate finance it reported to the United Nations in 2010-12. Japan says those plants are cleaner than older coal plants, though they pollute more than other energy sources.

The three-year period was meant to kick-start flows of money that rich countries have pledged to scale up to $100 billion a year by 2020. But UN talks have not established any rules defining what climate finance should be used for.

COP20, which ends on December 12, is the last COP climate summit before COP21 in Paris next year, where a new global agreement on climate change is due to be signed.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon he is hopeful that delegates in Peru will draft an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Delegates from more than 190 countries are trying to produce a draft agreement that would be negotiated over the next year and adopted at a conference in Paris in December 2015.