France doubles its contribution to the Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) welcomes France’s announcement to contribute EUR 1.548 billion to the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund made at the recently concluded G7 Summit in Biarritz, France.

At the final press conference of the G7 Summit, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France will double its contribution to GCF. Later in a tweet the President said, "Protecting those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change is everyone’s responsibility and that is why France, the United Kingdom and Germany have doubled our funding to the Green Climate Fund."

"The doubling of contributions to the Fund is vital to support developing countries to raise and realise climate ambitions," said Mr Yannick Glemarec, Executive Director of GCF. "We also appreciate the leadership of France in prioritising the GCF replenishment as part of the G7 Presidency. This signals the importance of the Fund to drive transformative outcomes for countries and communities in the frontline of climate change."

France is now the fifth country to indicate it will support GCF in its current replenishment drive following recent announcements from Canada and the UK they will contribute CAD 300 million and GBP 1.44 billion, respectively. Germany and Norway were among the initial countries to announce contributions in late 2018. So far, four countries – France, UK, Germany and Norway - have announced a doubling of their initial contributions in national currency.

A G7 Chair's Summary addressing climate, biodiversity and oceans released after the three-day gathering of world leaders indicated a number of countries which attended the G7 are currently finalising contributions to GCF’s replenishment and called on other countries to contribute to GCF’s "substantive first replenishment" to enhance GCF’s impact.

GCF’s first formal replenishment was launched during the 21st GCF Board meeting in October 2018. The process includes consultation meetings with potential contributors, developing countries, GCF Board members and interested stakeholders on the strategic directions of the Fund to respond to the urgency of climate action in developing countries. The second consultation meeting takes place in Ottawa, Canada, from 29-30 August 2019, which will then be followed by a pledging conference in autumn 2019. GCF replenishment is also high on the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit agenda on 23 September.

GCF has now allocated over USD 5.2 billion to 111 climate projects in 99 countries. In. addition to project funding, the Fund has also approved USD 160 million for capacity building activities (known as readiness support) helping 126 developing countries identify and address their most pressing climate finance challenges.