GCF - Objectives and guiding principles

The Green Climate Fund will contribute to the achievement of the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Green Climate Fund

The Fund will promote coherence in programming at the national level through appropriate mechanisms. The GCF Board will develop methods to enhance complementarity between the activities of the Fund and the activities of other relevant bilateral, regional and global funding mechanisms and institutions, to better mobilize the full range of financial and technical capacities.

1. Given the urgency and seriousness of climate change, the purpose of the Fund is to make a significant and ambitious contribution to the global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change.

2. The Fund will contribute to the achievement of the ultimate objective of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the context of sustainable development, the Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low emission and climate resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change, taking into account the needs of those developing countries particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

3. The Fund will be guided by the principles and provisions of the Convention. The Fund will operate in a transparent and accountable manner guided by efficiency and effectiveness. The Fund will play a key role in channelling new, additional, adequate and predictable financial resources to developing countries and will catalyse climate finance, both public and private, and at the international and national levels.

Eligibility

All developing country Parties to the Convention are eligible to receive resources from the Fund. The Fund will finance agreed full and agreed incremental costs for activities to enable and support enhanced action on adaptation, mitigation (including REDD-plus),1 technology development and transfer (including carbon capture and storage), capacity-building and the preparation of national reports by developing countries.

The Fund will support developing countries in pursuing project-based and programmatic approaches in accordance with climate change strategies and plans, such as low-emission development strategies or plans, nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs), national adaptation plans of action (NAPAs), national adaptation plans (NAPs) and other related activities.

Funding windows and fund structure

The Fund will have thematic funding windows. Initially, the Fund will have windows for adaptation and mitigation. An integrated approach to funding mitigation and adaptation will be used to allow for cross-cutting projects and programmes.

About the Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund was established in December 2011 at Durban, South Africa, by the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC with the purpose of making a significant and ambitious contribution to the global efforts towards attaining the goals set by the international community to combat climate change. In the context of sustainable development, the Fund will promote the paradigm shift towards low‐emission and climate‐resilient development pathways by providing support to developing countries to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Fund will provide simplified and improved access to climate change funding to developing countries, including direct access, basing its activities on a country‐driven approach.

The Green Climate Fund will be governed and supervised by a 24‐member Board and was designated as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC. The COP requested the UNFCCC secretariat jointly with the secretariat of the Global Environment Facility to set up the Interim Secretariat for the Fund.