Green Climate Fund commits a further $80 million to climate change adaptation projects

The Green Climate Fund has approved over $80 million for three new climate change adaptation projects.

Earlier in 2018, the Green Climate Fund announced funding worth $1 billion for climate adaptation projects. The interagency partnerships led by the United Nations Development Programme will support programmes in Bangladesh, Georgia and Zambia. In total, the projects will catalyse over $239 million towards climate resilience.

Pradeep Kurukulasuriya, the Head of Climate Change Adaptation, UNDP noted: “The approved projects touch on issues related to food security, access to water, and resilient infrastructure,”

Read the ClimateAction story - “Green Climate Fund commits a further $80 million to climate change adaptation projects.”

Cash begins trickling out of Green Climate Fund

Lambasted by Donald Trump and much criticised from all sides, the seemingly friendless Green Climate Fund has begun doling out money.

"We must protect the Amazon, as the life
of the planet depends on this ecosystem." 

Five years after its inaugural meeting, the fund has almost $10 billion of donations pledged but only a few million dollars have reached climate projects.

With its next board meeting scheduled for the 5-6 July, the UN-backed conduit for climate finance announced a series of payouts in May and June totalling $5.2m. A press release said the fund was scaling up disbursements.

On Friday, the Maldives received the first $3m of $23.6m committed to build better water infrastructure in the atoll nation, which is threatened by it lack of natural reservoirs, rising seas and saltwater intrusion.

Reads the Climate Home story - “Cash begins trickling out of Green Climate Fund.”

Robyn Eckersley questions Australia's climate diplomacy

Robyn Eckersley - from the University of
Melbourne, who is presently in Paris.

The diplomacy could be cast in positive terms, on the surface at least.

During the first week of the climate negotiations in Paris, Australia displayed a preparedness to be flexible and serve as a broker of compromises in the negotiations over the draft Paris Agreement.

Australia has also declared its support for the inclusion of a temperature goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which is a matter very dear to the hearts of Pacific Island nations for whom climate change is a fundamental existential threat.

Australia will serve as Co-chair (with South Africa) of the Green Climate Fund in 2016, which will be channelling money to the most vulnerable countries in the Pacific and elsewhere to enhance their preparedness for the harmful impacts arising from a much warmer world.

Read the report by the Professor and Chair of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, Robyn Eckersley, who is in Paris - “Australia’s climate diplomacy like a doughnut: empty in the middle.”

Julie Bishop keen to co-chair 'Bob Brown bank'

F

oreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has launched a bid for Australia to co-chair the Green Climate Fund that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott once criticised as "a Bob Brown bank on an international scale".

Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, is
 keen to co-chair Green Climate Fund.

A decision on who the next two co-chairs of the fund will be is expected to be made in Zambia late next week.

The co-chair positions are typically held by one developing and one developed country for a period of one year.

Fairfax Media has learnt that Ms Bishop first proposed Australia put its name forward to co-chair the fund when Mr Abbott was still prime minister.

Read The Age story - “Australia bids to co-chair the Green Climate Fund criticised by Tony Abbott.”