The International Atmosphere Facility’s governing physique has accredited greater than $700 million for nature safety and renewal initiatives, together with help for the Nice Inexperienced Wall and funding in large-scale initiatives for sustainable cities, cleaner industries, improved ocean and land well being, and larger local weather change resilience.
The funding from the GEF Belief Fund, Least Developed International locations Fund (LDCF), and International Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), which collectively are a part of the GEF household of funds, displays a dedication to shortly and effectively deploy grants to creating nations whose motion on environmental challenges is vital to assembly world objectives for biodiversity, local weather change, and air pollution this decade.
The bundle of help contains almost $500 million from the GEF Belief Fund for 25 initiatives and applications, amongst them the brand new world Sustainable Cities Built-in Program, and a number of efforts to deal with chemical compounds and waste challenges, together with in Bolivia’s cement, textile, brick, and glass sectors, in Brazil’s cement business, and in electronics globally. It additionally contains help for a brand new Indonesia Coral Bond that may join personal capital with pressing conservation wants, constructing on the profitable Wildlife Conservation Bond, or “rhino bond,” issued by the World Financial institution in 2022 with GEF monetary help.
Specializing in local weather change adaption, Council members accredited a report $203 million from the LDCF for initiatives throughout 20 Least Developed International locations, together with joint financing with the GEF Belief Fund for the Nice Inexperienced Wall. The LDCF help will propel efforts to reinforce resilience to flooding and drought in Laos and Cambodia; to develop climate-resilient transport infrastructure in Sao Tome and Principe; to help youth- and women-led inexperienced enterprises in Chad; to enhance meals safety in Sierra Leone; and to deal with different pressing wants.
The GBFF Council accredited the brand new fund’s very first work program, allocating $37.8 million for protected space administration in Brazil and Mexico. This got here lower than one yr after the fund supporting implementation of the International Biodiversity Framework was launched on the Seventh GEF Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The three GBFF-funded initiatives are set to enhance the sustainability of greater than 30 million hectares of protected areas on land and at sea, with long-term financing and help for Indigenous-led conservation.
CEO and Chairperson Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, who was appointed to a second four-year time period in the course of the Council conferences in Washington, DC, stated the massive, various bundle of help mirrored nations’ endorsement of the GEF household of funds’ distinctive capability to hyperlink challenges and tackle them holistically, via Built-in Applications and thru thematic programming.
“We’d like most ambition, most acceleration, most cooperation,” Rodríguez stated. “The one method we will fight the advanced environmental threats earlier than us is thru a unified, built-in, and harmonized strategy. At a second the place we hear requires a number of extra monetary mechanisms, I strongly consider that we have to come collectively, not additional divide ourselves.”
Council members additionally heard from the heads of multilateral environmental conventions in regards to the want for quick, collaborative, and joined-up motion in direction of worldwide objectives, looking forward to the three year-end Conferences of the Events (COPs) on biodiversity range, local weather change, and desertification. The Conference on Organic Variety’s COP16 will happen in Colombia in October; the UN Framework Conference on Local weather Change’s COP29 will happen in Azerbaijan in November; and the UN Conference to Fight Desertification’s COP16 will happen in Saudi Arabia in December.
Rolph Payet, Govt Secretary of the Stockholm Conference on Persistent Natural Pollution, confused the significance of prioritizing motion on air pollution, together with the phase-out of harmful chemical compounds, which may trigger long-lasting environmental hurt with large results. “Failure to satisfy the 2030 targets may result in continued contamination of ecosystems, antagonistic well being results in our our bodies and in wildlife, and elevated problem in reaching broader environmental and public well being objectives,” Payet stated.
This urgency was echoed by Monika Stankiewicz, Govt Secretary of the Minamata Conference on Mercury, who famous that cleansing up industrial processes and enhancing waste administration have been key to decreasing dangers to the environmental total, and to creating progress in direction of the International Biodiversity Framework in addition to targets on carbon emissions and land well being. “The wants are huge,” she stated.
The GEF Council will meet subsequent in December 2024, when nations will start discussions on the ninth replenishment of the Belief Fund. The four-year GEF-9 funding cycle will stretch from 2026 to 2030 – a interval aligned with the ultimate push for 2030 world environmental objectives together with the “30×30” goal.
“We’re at a second of fact for the planet. We have to rise to the problem by assessing what we now have, the place we have to go, and the way we are going to get there,” Rodríguez stated. “The GEF partnership must be greater, bolder, and higher. Greater in our ambitions. Bolder in our actions. And higher in our supply, higher in our influence. That is the spirit that I need us to take ahead as we enter into the GEF-9 replenishment negotiations.”
