Green Climate Fund makes €87 million available to EBRD Green Cities

The EBRD and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) signed an agreement releasing € 87 million of GCF funds to support the EBRD’s rapidly growing urban sustainability programme, EBRD Green Cities, as the first tranch of a €228 million facility.

The GCF is the largest fund in the world to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenge of climate change and is placing increasing attention on cities.

This interest is shared by the EBRD, which launched EBRD Green Cities in 2016 to help cities in the EBRD regions identify and address their most pressing climate change and local environmental challenges. More than two dozen cities are now members of EBRD Green Cities, with more than €1 billion in EBRD and donor funding mobilised to support the programme.

Cities account for 70 percent of energy use and 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Simultaneously, cities also represent a big opportunity to tackle these issues. Focusing on improving the way cities invest in municipal infrastructure is increasingly seen as the best way to achieve the 2015 Paris Agreement climate change ambition, to keep temperature rises fuelled by greenhouse gas emissions below 2C with the goal to limit warming below 1.5C.

Under the agreement, nine countries – Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Jordan, Moldova, Mongolia, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Tunisia – are eligible to receive support. This support comes through Green City Action Plans – comprehensive urban sustainability plans that target cities’ most pressing challenges through investment and policy actions; grants and concessional funding for investments in sustainable infrastructure; technical support and capacity building; and roadmaps for cities to access green finance.

The GCF support for EBRD Green Cities will focus on promoting climate action in cities through the mitigation of greenhouse gases and adaptation to increasing climate risks, in line with the GCF’s objectives. In other parts of the EBRD Green Cities programme, investments are also targeted towards projects to limit water, air, and soil pollution and solid waste management.

Original source: EBRD
Published on 02 July 2019