This is the 2019 update of Climate Finance Fundamentals Brief #11.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) became fully operational in 2015. While the GCF is an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism of the UNFCCC and under the Paris Agreement, it remains a legally independent institution hosted by South Korea. It has its own Secretariat and the World Bank as its trustee. The 24 GCF Board members, with equal representation of developed and developing countries and support from the Secretariat, have been working to operationalise the Fund since their first meeting in August 2012.
This year, the GCF continued to work on addressing policy gaps in essential policies and frameworks. These had intentions to speed up proposal approval and disbursement of approved funding, as well as to improve the overall quality of GCF projects and programmes, both approved and in the pipeline. As of November 2019, the GCF has accredited 95 implementing entities, that act as delivery partners for projects, and has approved USD 5,660.9 million for 124 projects. The 24th meeting of the Board in Songdo in late 2019, approved 13 of these project proposals worth USD 407.8 million in GCF resources. This almost depletes the remaining commitment authority and reflects the initial resource mobilization period coming to an end. The first replenishment period of the Fund starts in 2020 (GCF-1) with, by mid-November 2019, USD 9.78 billion pledged by 28 countries and with further contributions expected over the course of GCF-1 (from 2020-2023).
As we head towards COP 25 in Madrid, under a Chilean COP presidency, this Climate Finance Fundamental provides a snapshot of the operationalisation and functions of the GCF. With the Fund’s role in a post-2020 climate regime as the major finance channel under the Convention confirmed and as the largest multilateral climate fund, the scale of its first formal replenishment will remain a contentious issue. Past editions of this Climate Finance Fundamental further detail the design and initial operationalisation phases of the Fund.
