ECO is troubled by recent revelations about bilateral finance for coal-fired power plants being counted towards climate finance obligations under Fast Start Finance.
ECO is also concerned that the Green Climate Fund Board has not explicitly ruled out the possibility that the GCF might fund fossil fuel projects. It seems painfully obvious that something called the Green Climate Fund should not support coal-fired power plants, but the experience of Fast Start Finance clearly shows that strict rules are needed.
In May, over 250 movements and organisations from developing countries – representing people bearing the brunt of climate impacts – wrote a letter to the GCF Board. This letter was also supported by 80 northern NGOs. The letter urged the Board to make it an explicit policy that GCF funds will not be used, directly or indirectly, for financing fossil fuel projects or programs.
ECO urges the COP, in its guidance to the GCF, to require the GCF’s Board to adopt an exclusion list that would prevent any Green Climate Fund money from supporting fossil fuels. The GCF’s mandate for supporting a “paradigm shift” leaves no room for it to support a continued global fossil fuel addiction.