Energy Secretary Ed Davey announced that the UK will provide £1.5 billion of ‘fast start’ finance to help developing countries tackle climate change on his arrival in Doha at the United Nations negotiations (COP18).
The UK remains committed to providing its “fair share” of long-term global investment, confirmed the government, which aims to reach $100 billion a year by 2020 and was agreed at the UN climate change summit in 2010.
The UK is the first nation to commit to the International Climate Fund (ICF), which will support efforts in partnership with developing countries reduce carbon emissions, tackle deforestation and adapt to the effects of climate change.
The package of measures outlined by Davey includes a further £149.5 million investment in five other schemes supporting better water management (£21 million), low-carbon agriculture in Colombia (£15 million) and an expansion of the UK’s successful ‘2050 calculator’, which allows the modelling of different energy and emissions scenarios.
The largest single investments commits £98 million to Green Africa Power (GAP), an initiative to stimulate private support of renewable energy across the continent and aims to finance around 270 MW of new generating capacity.
A further £14 million will make up the UK’s contribution to the ‘Get Fit’ effort with Norway and Germany, which will invest in the development of small-scale on-grid renewable projects in Uganda.
“Climate finance is fundamental to building resilience and capacity for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Our focus will be on results that make a difference on the ground and we are working with a variety of partners, including developing countries, other donors organisations and the private sector to deliver this,” commented Davey in a statement.
But recent research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports that cross-border investment in developing nations was just $8 billion last year, well short of the target of $100 billion by 2020.
For further information:
www.decc.gov.uk
www.cop18.qa/
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Still hope for UN climate change talks, says UK Energy Secretary (3-Dec)
Clean energy investment falling short of international promises (27-Nov)
Industrialised nations fail to deliver on climate funding for developing world (19-May 2011)
COP16: Cancún talks end with modest climate deal (13-Dec 2010)
Article source: http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/5605/
