Green Climate Fund
Delve deeper into the issues that interest you the most and know that you are at the cutting edge of the climate finance conversation. CMIA’s working groups give our members the opportunity to share their unique expertise and push the advocacy of climate finance and investments, instruments and best practices on complex issues.
Fact File
Name: Green Climate Fund Working Group
Chair: Alexandra Tracy, President of Hoi Ping Ventures
Contact: [email protected]
Purpose: Our function is to coordinate CMIA’s activities as a conduit for information flow between the business and financial communities and the Board and Secretariat of the GCF by defining priority concerns of the private sector and gathering input from industry.
Current Focus:
- Improving communication between the various constituencies
- Encouraging private sector to engage with the GCF
- Working on a white paper on GCF project metrics and benchmarks
Delve Deeper
The United Nations Green Climate Fund (‘GCF’), conceptualised at the Cancun COP in 2010 and fully operational since 2015, is the largest climate finance fund in the world – targeting funding flows of US$100 billion per year by 2020. Its specific mandate is to encourage and facilitate private investment in climate related activities. GCF aims to go much further than other public climate finance institutions in leveraging private capital for mitigation and adaptation, and using its own risk bearing capacity to enable innovation and funding at scale.
The GCF has already gone some way towards integrating the private sector into its activities. Five of the institutions which have been approved to receive funding directly from the GCF (which they will on-lend or invest in other institutions or projects) are commercial entities, including global banks HSBC, Credit Agricole and Deutsche Bank. Out of over US$1.2 billion in GCF funding approved to date, approximately 20% will go to projects classified as private sector.
But the GCF needs to take more action to reach out to the business and investment communities. CMIA holds one of two Active Private Sector Observer seats on the board of the GCF. Through its observer status, CMIA has a unique ability to give the board direct feedback from its membership on key issues that will impact how successfully the GCF interacts with private actors.
The GCF Working Group coordinates CMIA’s vital activities as a conduit for information flow between the business and financial communities and the board and Secretariat of the GCF, by defining priority concerns of the private sector and gathering input from industry. At the same time, the Working Group will take the lead in raising awareness among CMIA members and the wider community of the activities of the GCF and the potential opportunities it creates for private actors.
