Climate protection and energy transition Green Climate Fund pledging conference in Bonn: Signal of solidarity in climate action
Joint press release of Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office | At the conference for the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund hosted in Bonn by Germany a total of 9.322 billion US dollars was pledged. This funding will be used between 2024 and 2027 to finance projects that will drive forward climate action and the energy transition in developing countries and emerging economies, and will help developing countries particularly affected by climate change cope better with the impacts of global warming. At the conference, 25 countries made funding pledges, with another 5 countries announcing that they will shortly present their pledges, meaning that the final total funding received is likely to be considerably higher. The German government announced at the conference that it was committing two billion euros for this replenishment of the Green Climate Fund.
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Development Minister Svenja Schulze speaks at the replenishment conference for the Green Climate Fund in Bonn.
Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze, the conference host, said: “The conference in Bonn sends a signal of solidarity: the world is standing together in the fight against climate change. Many pledges were made today, and more will follow before the UN climate summit in December. This will enable the Green Climate Fund to continue and further advance its important work in emerging and developing countries. It will be able to invest in climate-friendly agriculture, coastal protection, reforestation and the energy transition in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the islands of the Caribbean and Pacific. At this conference, Germany made it clear that we stand by our responsibility and will do our fair share. Based on this, we can also call on others to likewise do their fair share. Besides the other industrialised countries, I also increasingly see this applying to countries that are not traditional donors, countries like the Gulf states, which became rich by exporting fossil fuels; or emerging countries like China, which are now responsible for a significant share of global CO₂ emissions.”
Jennifer Morgan, State Secretary and Special Envoy for International Climate Action, Federal Foreign Office, said: “The climate crisis is the greatest challenge of our time, and the Green Climate Fund symbolises our joint approach to tackling this challenge in a spirit of solidarity. The Green Climate Fund is a powerful instrument to boost climate resilience and generate sustainable growth – and one that becomes stronger with every new pledge. Many countries have recognised the potential of the green transformation. They want to move away from fossil fuels and are committing to expand renewable energies and invest in green technologies. The Green Climate Fund is a transformation accelerator that supports states on their path of transformation towards greater climate resilience and climate prosperity. In this context, climate finance is the foundation on which we can build a new, climate-friendly world of renewable energies and which will enable countries across the world to seize the opportunities presented by the transformation. Germany has met its share of climate finance, and we call on all states that can afford it to do the same. We need every strong shoulder available to carry us forward into the new world of renewable energies and to protect the most vulnerable.”
The conference was attended by representatives from roughly 40 countries, including the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Mark Brown, Denmark’s Environment Minister Dan Jørgensen and the Belgian Environment Minister Caroline Gennez. Germany was represented by Development Minister Svenja Schulze, who was the conference host, the Secretary of State and Special Envoy for International Climate Action at the Federal Foreign Office, Jennifer Morgan, and the German Development Ministry’s State Secretary, Jochen Flasbarth. 25 countries pledged funding. Around three quarters of these countries increased their commitment this year compared with the last pledging conference in 2019, among them Germany, Austria and France. Three countries (Denmark, Ireland and Liechtenstein) even doubled their previous contribution. Five countries have announced that they will make pledges after the conference, among them the US and Sweden.
The Green Climate Fund is one of the world’s biggest climate funds and finances climate action measures like the expansion of renewable energies and adaptation to climate change. This makes the Fund an important instrument for implementing the Paris climate agreement. Since its inception, the Fund has received around 19 billion US dollars in commitments. Using this funding, it has been able to mobilise a total of 48 billion US dollars via cooperation with private and public sector partners. It is supporting 228 projects around the world. Roughly one billion people have already benefited from these projects.
The Fund supports climate projects in developing countries and emerging economies, helping them to implement their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). It offers grants, loans, guarantees and equity for programmes that promote low-carbon economic development or contribute to climate change adaptation. The Green Climate Fund also partners with the private sector to mobilise further funding for mitigation and adaptation measures. Thanks to the Fund, smallholders in Cambodia, for example, are able to make use of climate-smart cultivation methods and thus increase their harvests. Fishers in Vanuatu are able to engage in effective coastal protection and tap into new sources of income. In Madagascar meanwhile, the Fund is supporting people’s forest conservation and restoration efforts.
Click here for a list of contributions and for further information about the pledging conference for the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund: https://www.greenclimate.fund/about/resource-mobilisation/gcf-2 (External link)