“At the 2010 UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, the 194 member countries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to help channel finance from developed to developing countries for building climate resiliency and shifting to low-carbon development pathways. A year later, at the climate summit in Durban, South Africa they
launched the fund. Parties have agreed that the Fund should be able to manage large-scale financial resources from a number of
sources (public, private etc.) delivered through a variety of financial instruments (grants, loans, risk guarantees, etc.). They also agreed that the fund would operate under
the guidance of the UNFCCC and with accountability to all of the convention’s members. Countries decided on a governing Board of 24 representatives coming equally
from developing and developed countries – each with one vote. The World Bank launched a suite of Climate Investment Funds(CIFs) in 2008, including funds for clean technology,
adaptation, renewable energy and forestry. One of the Bank’s main arguments of the need for CIFs was that large sums of money could be mobilised by the provision of some public funds to leverage much greater volumes of private finance. The closer the relationship between the GCF and the COP, the greater the possibility that the interests of the most climate impacted countries – including those
in Africa – are upheld.”
