Now Japan Pledges $1.5 Billion to Green Climate Fund

Now Japan Pledges $1.5 Billion to Green Climate Fund

News Comes as G20 Issue Strong Statement in Support of UN Climate Negotiations

Bonn, 16 November 2014Japan today announced a pledge of $1.5 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) ahead of next week’s pledging conference in Berlin.

The pledge, announced on the margins of the G20 Summit taking place in Brisbane, Australia, comes in the wake of a $3 billion pledge by the United States.

Total pledges to date for the GCF, the financial instrument designed to assist developing countries achieve their mitigation and adaptation ambitions, stand at around $7.5 billion putting the aim of $10 billion by the next UN climate convention conference in sight.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said: “I welcome the government of Japan's pledge which has, along with other announcements over the past few days triggered a positive atmosphere around the upcoming pledging meeting in Berlin and in advance of the UN climate convention conference in Lima in a few weeks’ time”.

Ms Figueres also welcomed today’s statement by the G20 Heads of State which included a strong and supportive section on climate action.

The statement said: “We support strong and effective action to address climate change. Consistent with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its agreed outcomes, our actions will support sustainable development, economic growth, and certainty for business and investment. We will work together to adopt successfully a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the UNFCCC that is applicable to all parties at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in 2015”.

“We encourage parties that are ready to communicate their intended nationally determined contributions well in advance of COP21 (by the first quarter of 2015 for those parties ready to do so). We reaffirm our support for mobilizing finance for adaptation and mitigation, such as the Green Climate Fund”, it added.

ENDS

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