Strengthening partnerships key to enhanced climate action, GCF leader tells largest gathering of developing country partners

Strengthening partnerships key to enhanced climate action, GCF leader tells largest gathering of developing country partners

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) will “refine and sharpen” its support for developing nations’ climate ambition amid alarming signs of the increasing threats of climate change, GCF Executive Director Yannick Glemarec informed GCF’s largest gathering yet of its partners.

“July 2019 was the warmest month on Earth since at least 1850,” he told 125 developing country representatives, including 50 ministers, among over 500 participants during the opening session of the five-day GCF Global Programming Conference.

“It was the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared. In response to the climate crisis, developing countries are rapidly raising their climate efforts to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable.”

To meet the rising ambitions of developing countries to tackle climate change, Mr. Glemarec vowed GCF will hone its flow of climate finance strategically through partnerships which best match national needs, and called on global support for GCF during its first replenishment this year.

“To support this call, we must develop a robust strategy and ambitious programming plans. We must demonstrate together that GCF is fit-for-purpose to help your economies withstand and adapt to the impacts of climate change, while also significantly reducing emissions that further exacerbate climate change,” he said.

Ban Ki-Moon, former UN Secretary-General, emphasised the importance of GCF in meeting a global commitment to mobilise USD 100 billion of climate finance for developed countries annually by 2020.

“2020 is just a few months away, and I’m deeply concerned by the level of the ambition shown by the world leaders,” he said.

GCF will learn from the five days of conference discussions, covering a broad variety of climate action themes, to ensure it best matches growing developing country ambition by crafting strategic and impactful approaches to climate finance.

Original source: GCF
Published on 19 August 2019