Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a new global fund created to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenge of climate change. GCF helps developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change. It seeks to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development. It was set up by the 194 countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, as part of the Convention’s financial mechanism. It aims to deliver equal amounts of funding to mitigation and adaptation, while being guided by the Convention’s principles and provisions. When the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, the Green Climate Fund was given an important role in serving the agreement and supporting the goal of keeping climate change well below 2 degrees Celsius.
GCF invests in adaptation and mitigation activities in developing countries through its partner organisations, known as Accredited Entities. GCF invests in the following Strategic Impact Areas: Energy access and power generation; Low emission transport; Buildings, cities, industries and appliances; Forestry and land use; Most vulnerable people and communities; Health and well-being, and food and water security; Infrastructure and built environment; and Ecosystems and ecosystem services.

Additionally, in October 2017, the GCF has launched a Pilot Programme for REDD+ results-based payments (GCF/B.18/23) to pilot REDD+ results-based payments, consistent with the Warsaw Framework for REDD+ and other REDD+ decisions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).The five-year pilot marks a major milestone for the Fund’s support of REDD+. UNDP, led by the Global Environmental Finance Unit/Climate and Forest Team, is supporting countries with the development of proposals as well as oversight of projects under implementation in three different ways:

• UNDP acts as accredited entity for proposal to the Forest and Land-Use mitigation impact area in line with the Green Climate Fund support for the early phases of REDD‐plus (GCF/B.17/16).

• UNDP acts as accredited entity for REDD+ results-based payments proposals submit to the GCF pilot programme

• UNDP works in partnership where other agencies that act as Accredited Entity (AE) whereby UNDP acts as service provider to implement specific components of an approved project for which it has a comparative advantage. This partnership is formalized through a financing agreement.

• Priming Financial and Land-Use Planning Instruments to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation, a USD 41M GCF grant in to support the implementation of the Ecuador REDD+ Action Plan.  This was the very first project approved in support of REDD+ by the GCF.