The head of the United Nations’s flagship climate fund said it may have to pare back its emissions-cutting projects in developing countries if donors, especially the United States, do not pay their outstanding obligations.
Speaking at the Green Climate Fund’s board meeting on Monday, the group’s executive director, Yannick Glemarec, said that without the additional funds, “some turn-off will be unavoidable.”
“It’s one of my fears,” he added.
Some have blamed the U.S. for the possible cutbacks, noting that former President Barack Obama paid only one-third of the $3 billion he pledged to the GCF in 2014. That deficit continued for four years under former President Donald Trump, who made zero payments to the group.
“If the GCF needs to limit its operations in the near future due to lack of funding, it’s hard to find any single country more at fault than the United States,” ActionAid policy director Brandon Wu told Climate Home News.
Though President Joe Biden has attempted to increase contributions to the GCF, his efforts have so far been stymied by Republicans in Congress, who blocked approval of any of the proposed $1.25 billion in funds requested in last year’s budget proposal.
Now, the administration is trying again. In his 2023 fiscal year budget proposal released Monday, Biden is requesting that Congress provide the GCF with $1.6 billion in funds and, on top of that, has requested an additional $11 billion in international climate change funds.
US EXPORTED RECORD AMOUNT OF LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS IN 2021
The U.N. established the GCF at its climate talks more than a decade ago in an effort to finance emissions reductions in the developing world. It has since allocated more than $10 billion to projects in vulnerable areas, designed both to reduce carbon emissions and help at-risk populations cope with the impact of climate change.
If Biden is to ensure that the $1.6 billion is allocated to the GCF, his administration must make it a major funding priority, World Resources Institute climate finance analyst Joe Thwaites told Climate Home News.
While the White House does have tools at its disposal to fund the GCF, it might have to get creative to circumvent congressional approval, he said.
Such options include the use of “flexible funds,” Thwaites added, such as the State Department’s Economic Support Fund, which is how Obama pushed through the $1 billion payment.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“However,” Thwaites warned, “this account is used to fund many different overseas [programs], and so it depends on how many other claims there are on these resources and whether the administration will prioritize funding the GCF.”
