A new website, aiming to provide transparency about the origin, amount and use of funds going to developing countries to support action to fight climate change, has been launched.
A new website, aiming to provide transparency about the origin, amount and use of funds going to developing countries to support action to fight climate change, has been launched: www.faststartfinance.net.
At the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, developed countries pledged to provide developing countries with funds approaching 30 billion dollars for climate policy during the period 2010-2012.
The Copenhagen Accord outlines this pledge “to provide new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, approaching $30 billion for the period 2010 to 2012 with balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation.”
The objective of the funds, referred to as ‘fast start finance’ is to help developing countries adapt to the impact of climate change and to pursue actions that put them on a low-carbon development pathway.
Transparency about the delivery of this pledge will be crucial in the climate negotiations in November in the Mexican city of Cancun.
Christiana Figueres the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC has stated: “Clarity on the short-term funding and its allocation is one of the central keys that will unlock the doors for progress at Cancún”. UN secretary-general Ban-ki Moon has called for “Clear evidence…before Cancun that fast start funds have started to flow in 2010”.
Visitors to www.faststartfinance.net can click on to donor and recipient countries on a map of the world and gain access to detailed information about climate projects. The website will be serviced by UNDP in close consultation with World Bank and UNEP and other UN agencies, including the UNFCCC secretariat.
During her presentation of the website in Geneva, Dutch Environment Minister Tineke Huizinga strongly called on other countries to publish information about their climate finance on the website. The organizers hope that the website will provide as much transparency as possible about climate finance before the climate COP in Cancun in late November.
www.faststartfinance.net is a Netherlands-led initiative, developed with support from Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Norway, the United Kingdom and Vietnam and in consultation with UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and The World Bank.