The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has promised developing nations it will ramp up efforts to help them tackle climate challenges as they strive to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, approving US$879 million (S$1.2 billion) in backing for 15 new projects around the world.
At a four-day virtual board meeting ending late last Friday, the fund added Afghanistan and Sudan to a list of more than 100 countries receiving a total of US$6.2 billion to reduce planet-heating emissions and enhance climate resilience.
The GCF was set up under United Nations climate talks in 2010 to help developing nations tackle global warming, and started allocating money in 2015.
Those promises came as small island states criticised the pace and size of GCF assistance, saying they were now struggling with the economic blow from the pandemic on top of climate change impacts such as rising seas and stronger storms.
Fiji’s UN ambassador Satyendra Prasad said COVID-19 risked worsening the already high debt burden of small island nations, as tourism dived.
He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that island nations were struggling to access other sources of finance and urged the GCF to boost aid to help them prepare project proposals and to release funding for approved projects faster.
The Alliance of Small Island States, of which Singapore is a member, said its members represented less than 10% of total funding requests.
The GCF last week approved three new projects for island nations, including strengthening buildings to withstand hurricanes in Antigua and Barbuda, and installing solar power systems on farmland on Fiji’s Ovalau island.
It also gave the green light to payments rewarding reductions in deforestation in Colombia and Indonesia between 2014 and 2016.
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Source: The Straits Times, 24 August 2020