Green Climate Fund

Just weeks before the Paris climate summit, first funding decisions by the GCF Board at its 11th meeting in Livingstone, Zambia, make the Fund fully operational. Nevertheless, a lot of policy work on outstanding issues is still needed for 2016 before the GCF can stand both the test of time and the test of its own ambition and vision.

The Green Climate Fund, striving to be fully operational by the Paris climate summit in December, missed its "effectiveness date" at the end of April, an important deadline giving the Fund the authority to begin making funding commitments. This analysis provides a status update on what the Fund needs to not only "open for business" soon, but also move lastingly beyond "business as usual."

The first ever pledging conference for the new Green Climate Fund will be held in Berlin, Germany on November 20th.  Anything less than USD 10 billion in confirmed pledges could be seen as a sign that rich countries are not supportive of the Fund and spell trouble for the climate talks in Lima, Peru beginning in just two weeks.  But at stakes is much more than just one big figure, according to Liane Schalatek.

Designed to "promote the paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climate resilient development pathways," the GCF is the first climate fund with a gender mainstreaming mandate from the outset of its operations.

hbs North America has accompanied the process for the operationalization of the GCF from its very beginning, including in the design phase of the Transitional Committee, with analysis and reports for each meeting.

hbs Washington, DC and other civil society organizations have been active in shaping the GCF's operations, striving for fair, gender-equitable and transformational outcomes. Read CSO submissions to the GCF and CSO public advocacy calls here. 

A growing coalition of international civil society organizations works with constructive input and analysis to make the GCF the best multilateral climate fund possible.  Read some of our partners' publications here.

The seven months long process to design a new Green Climate Fund, on which a 40 member Transitional Committee has embarked since the end of April, ended at the fourth TC Meeting in Cape Town with a "sub-optimal" outcome as TC members failed to reach a consensus on a draft governing instrument for the Fund.