Agreement with Green Climate Fund

Agreement with Green Climate Fund unlocks new opportunities for climate action in the Pacific

08 November 2019

Noumea, New Caledonia – The Pacific Community (SPC) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) signed an Accreditation Master Agreement today, to further expand their partnership in favour of mitigation and adaptation to climate change in the Pacific.

This significant breakthrough means that SPC will be able to facilitate access for the 14 SPC members who are signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)* to GCF funding for climate-related projects (up to USD 50 million per project), in various areas such as food security, health, resilience, ecosystems management, oceans, fisheries and renewable energy.

SPC is currently working on a pipeline of about ten projects, with the objective of presenting the first ones to the GCF board in 2020.

This agreement will help expand SPC’s current portfolio of climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience projects, through which SPC provides a wide range of services to its members. These include grant funding, technical assistance, scientific information, knowledge, technology, policy advice, capacity building and management support.

It comes at a critical time in the struggle against climate change in the Pacific. Countries from the region are amongst the most vulnerable in the world because of their high dependence on natural resources, limited diversification of their economies, and high exposure to severe weather and natural hazards.

The effects of climate change are already visible, requiring countries in the region to act as fast as possible in order to scale up their adaptation and resilience programmes while continuing to pursue their low-emission objectives.

“Thanks to this agreement, we will be able to channel more climate funding and more partnerships towards the Pacific, to ensure that sustained funding and attention is brought to the region, particularly to Pacific Island countries (PICs), which face in climate change their most existential threat.”, said Cameron Diver, SPC’s Deputy Director-General.

GCF Deputy Executive Director Javier Manzanares said GCF is paying particular attention to supporting the resilience of Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to match their extreme vulnerability to climate impacts.

“Warming oceans, sea-level rise and more intense weather events like cyclones are already impacting the everyday lives of Pacific Island people,” said Mr Manzanares.

“GCF is ready and willing to increase its support for Pacific SIDS. Without major investments to improve their adaptation to climate change now, some of these island nations could become uninhabitable,” Mr Manzanares added, citing a recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report focusing on the world’s oceans.

*These include: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu

© Scoop Media