In response to the UK’s pledge to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) second replenishment, to be announced by the Prime Minister at the G20 Summit on 10th September 2023, Catherine Pettengell, Executive Director of Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK) said:
“We welcome the Prime Minister’s announcement at the G20 Summit of £1.62bn to the Green Climate Fund. This move demonstrates the UK’s confidence in the GCF as a key institution for climate finance. But more is needed. The urgency and scale of the climate crisis, and the devastating impacts it is having on communities and countries around the world, is yet to be matched by the necessary action. The government must go further to rebuild global confidence in the UK as a climate leader, and a helpful step towards this would be to increase this contribution further at the pledging conference in October in advance of COP28.”
The UK contributed £1.44bn to the GCF’s first replenishment for the period 2020-23. Today’s announcement represents a 12.7% increase on that for this second GCF replenishment for the period 2024-2027. Other countries that have already announced their pledges to the GCF include a 33% increase on Germany’s first replenishment contribution and a 50% increase from Canada.
The IPCC’s recent Sixth Assessment Report reinforces the urgency of climate action and the imperative of providing climate finance to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Developing countries bearing the brunt of climate change impacts have repeatedly highlighted the importance of climate finance being channelled through multilateral funds, allowing for accountability to Parties and higher levels of country ownership.
This preference reinforces the centrality of the GCF, the largest multilateral climate fund in the international climate finance architecture, given its role in channelling new, additional, adequate, and predictable financial resources to developing countries. The GCF’s governance structure – in which contributing and recipient countries have equal voice and vote – challenges the status quo of untransparent, “donor-driven”, and ineffective modes of finance.
We believe in the potential of the GCF to fund real, transformative climate action, as the flagship fund to support implementation of the Convention and the Paris Agreement. The GCF has a mandate to directly support the implementation of country-driven climate action, provide a balance of funds between adaptation and mitigation, and ringfence more than half of its adaptation funding for SIDS, LDCs, and African states.
The urgency of combatting the climate crisis is undeniable, and an ambitious replenishment is necessary for the GCF to achieve its paradigm-shifting potential and to enable transformative climate action in the context of sustainable development and limiting temperature rise to 1.5 ºC.
Notes:
Climate Action Network UK (CAN-UK) is the UK node of CAN, a global network of more than 1,900 civil society organisations in over 130 countries driving collective and sustainable action to fight the climate crisis and to achieve social and racial justice. climatenetwork.org
CAN-UK brings together international development and environment organisations in the UK working on the poverty-nature-climate agenda to advocate for climate justice and sustainable development for all.
Catherine Pettengell can be contacted for comment on +44(0)7967 494760.
