Has Australia's investment in the Green Climate Fund been successful?
The Green Climate Fund is a critical part of the international community’s efforts to tackle climate change as the largest international climate fund helping developing counties respond to climate change. Established in 2010, it has US$10.3bn and approved 53 climate change projects in 73 countries worth US$2.64 billion in GCF resources. Priorities for this year include speeding up implementation and enhancing accessibility. Australia has committed $200m to the GCF which represents its single largest international climate change investment and played an important role in the development of the GCF.
The GCF will have its 19th Board meeting from 27 February – 1 March 2018. An important priority at this meeting is the adoption of its environmental and social safeguards that aim to ensure that the GCF does not support activities that harm the environment or vulnerable people, such as women or indigenous people and perhaps more importantly that no one is left behind. The safeguards provide an important international precedent as they aim to be world’s best practice and will be the most recent international safeguard adopted. The safeguards also highlight some of the challenges that face the Fund.
Sam Johnston has been engaged by the Secretariat of the GCF to assist with the development of these safeguards and will participate in the Board meeting.
His talk will discuss the development of the GCF, highlight some of its key challenges, analyse the GCF safeguards, next steps and the prospects of them achieving their aims.
Sam Johnston is Senior Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne. He is also a consultant to the Green Climate Fund, Member of the Environmental and Social Safeguards (ESS) Experts Roster for the Green Climate Fund and Member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Resources, Energy and Environmental Law, University of Melbourne. He has worked with various UN agencies for over 25 years and is a qualified solicitor in Victoria.