Green Climate Fund ready to receive contributions

THE Green Climate Fund (GCF), a global initiative established to channel billions in new finances to developing countries like Guyana, last week concluded discussions on all the elements which needed to be put in place before it could receive contributions.

The disclosure was made by GCF Executive Director, Ms Hela Cheikhrouhou during her feature presentation at the William G. Demas Memorial Lecture themed ‘Green Climate Fund: Great Expectations.’
The talk, at the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown, was hosted by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in honour of a former Governor of the Bank, scholar and highly respected public servant, Mr. William Demas, who died in 1998.
“The Fund is now ready for business,” Cheikhrouhou told the gathering for the 15th William G. Demas Memorial Lecture.
Agreed to by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UFCCC) in 2010, the role of the fund is to make a significant contribution to the global efforts to limit warming to two degrees centigrade (2°C) by providing financial support to developing countries to help reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
“The vision of the GCF is to devise new paradigms for climate finance, maximise the impact of public finance in a creative way and attract new sources of public and private financing to catalyse investment in adaptation and mitigation projects in the developing world,” Cheikhrouhou explained.
She said the GCF is poised to play a relevant and timely role in climate action globally by catalysing public and private funding at the international, regional and national levels through dedicated programming in climate change mitigation and adaptation and as a driver of climate resilient development.
The memorial lectures have been staged by the Bank during its annual general meeting every year since his demise and Cheikhrouhou was the selected speaker this year.

Audience included
The Chairperson for the event was Dr. Warren Smith, President of the CDB and those in the audience included Guyana Prime Minister Samuel Hinds; Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr.Denzil Douglas and Premier of Montserrat, Mr. Reuben T. Meade.
Chairman of the 44th annual meeting of the CDB Board of Governors and Guyana Minister of Finance, Dr.Ashni Singh; CARICOM Secretary- General, Ambassador Irwin La Roque; other Ministers of the Guyana Government, more Governors and members of the CDB and members of the Diplomatic Corps.
During her presentation Cheikhrouhou said climate change poses the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced.
“Rising temperatures, rising sea levels jeopardising the lives of people in low-lying coastal areas and small island states, increase in hurricanes and related damages, loss of income from tourism etc pose a severe threat to countries all over the world and the Caribbean in particular,” she warned.
She stressed that in order to stay below 2°C of warming, the world must effectively become carbon negative and most fossil fuels – the driving force behind many economies and much of our development – must be replaced by renewables and clean forms of energy.
Cheikhrouhou declared:“It cannot be business as usual any longer. The costs of inaction would amount to 22 per cent of gross domestic product for the Caribbean as a whole by 2100 and could reach an astonishing 75 percent or more of GDP by 2100 in Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, St.Kitts and Nevis and Turks and Caicos.”
She disclosed that the GCF represents an important avenue for developing countries including those in the Caribbean to access a new source of grant aid for mitigation of climate change and for building resilience to its hazards.

Joint endeavour
The Executive Director pointed out that the Fund is a joint endeavour between developed and developing countries with equal representation of both worlds on its Board.
She said that representatives on the Board will work in collaboration to access resources to implement programmes for mitigation and adaptation.
The GCF is counting on pledges of finances from developed countries and innovative and compelling strategic proposals from developing countries to make the fund successful.
She emphasised:“Decisive action based on strong political will and accompanied by sufficient resources – financial and otherwise – is imperative in addressing the negative impacts of climate change through both adaptation and mitigation.
“Only through cooperation, collaboration, a common vision and aligned political will can we rise to the great expectation of finally winning the battle against climate change.”
“The challenge is huge and the expectations are certainly great. It can be done,” she maintained.

(By Clifford Stanley)