Climate fund ready to assist climate change priorities

CCDA MD Ruel Yamuna, and GCF Regional Advisor to the Pacific Coral Pasisi speaking to the press.

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, December 4, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

WITH its inaugural workshop in Papua New Guinea, held on Tuesday- the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has informed stakeholders in the country of its assistance to develop effective pathways to address climate change.

Run by officials from the US$10 billion (K30 billion) global climate fund in partnership with the Climate Change Development Authority (CCDA) in the country- GCF Regional Advisor to the Pacific Coral Pasisi, informed those in attendance by helping with expertise and the resources mandated under the fund’s care to help Small Island developing states like Papua New Guinea achieve its adaptation and mitigation needs going forward.

“It is a country led process where the CCDA through its consultation with a wide range of stakeholders in Papua New Guinea already has a good idea about your low emission development pathway or mitigations and adaptation needs going forward.”

“We really come in as a partner to help enable the country to achieve those objectives as resources and as development partners to align with the efforts of Papua New Guinea so we don’t dictate any priority areas of the country.”

“We really are just here to support climate change agenda of the country and the stakeholders that are already doing an excellent job that have already worked into the whole development planning process with the elements of climate change, which Papua New Guinea needs to factor in over the next 10, 30, to 50 years,” Ms Pasisi said.

With access to global climate funding arrangements an issue for the country to access, the workshop was organized by the National Designated Authority (CCDA) to enable the climate fund to explain its stringent requirements needed in order for the country to finally access the huge pool of resources to address the country’s many climate related issues that continue to affect the development of PNG

“There are wide range of areas but we basically have sort of four key areas around mitigation which include transport, energy efficiency renewable energy, forest and land use, and key windows that look at adaptation that look at making infrastructure resilient, making sure that food and water security and health security are robust and eco-systems are also robust.”

“So these are areas that we can provide funding for projects, and against those we have a number of what we call investment criteria which really simply mean that the finance that is put into that system to help achieve the objective is well used, that it is targeted where it is most needed.”

“We do not want to replace any funding sources that you already have on this journey, we want to leverage in more resources and more partners to assist you with journey towards a stronger more resilient country and a low emission pathway,” she said.

Established in 2011, out of previous existing climate funding arrangements, where 194 countries signed on to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)- the Green Climate Fund has little over US$10.3 billion in pledges with majority of those funds already secured as signed contributions.

50% of the fund goes to mitigation and other 50% goes to adaptation activities.

Coral pointed out the division in both areas of climate change activities as a big win for countries considering past arrangements being more mitigation centered.

“Of the 50% of the funds that go to adaptation- at least 50% of those funds go to the most vulnerable countries recognized as Small Island Developing States (SIDS), least developed countries (LDC) and countries in Africa.”

“Which means we place a particular emphasis on access to these countries, and Papua New Guinea obviously is considered a small island developing states.”

“A larger portion of resources is for projects under adaptation and mitigation. Then we have two other pools of funding windows of funding. One is called readiness, it basically helps countries get ready to access the funds. US$30 million allocated to that at the moment of which about US$25 million has already been programed.”