Global Environment Facility secures record $5.25bn in commitments from countries

Pictured: Samoa is one of the 58 Small Island Developing Countries in the World

The Rio Earth Summit preparations included the creation of the Facility in 1991. It has provided $119bn in cofinancing and grants in excess of $22bn to date. The latest tranche of pledges, which total $5.25bn in pledges, was confirmed late last week. 25 countries made commitments for the Global Environment Facility’s upcoming eighth operating period. This cycle will be from July 2022 to Juni 2026. In June, pledges from individual countries will be made public.

The new commitments are almost 30% more than the previous operating period which began in summer 2018 but ends in June 2022. The 2018-2022 operating period saw commitments drop from the 2014-2018 cycle of $4.43bn down to $4.1bn. This trend can partly be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Global Environment Facility funds are distributed worldwide to assist developing nations in meeting their obligations under UN agreements on environment. After two years of delays due to pandemics, the world’s post-2020 biodiversity treaty is being finalized by the nations. This year’s goal is to stop the loss of nature this decade.

This is why the majority of funding that will be contributed and allocated under the Global Environment Facilitys 2022-2026 Operating Cycle will be used to support efforts to restore and protect nature. Many countries have already received grants for early action under the current operating cycle in order to reduce species loss.

The Facility has also stated that it will ensure that Small Island Developing States receive a higher share of funding during this operating cycle. It also intends to work closer with the private sector in order to assist public grant funding and loan funding to catalyze private capital.

Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Global Environment Facilitys chief executive officer and chairman, said that this replenishment is crucial for both the programs and projects supported by the GEF around the globe and the global environment benefits they bring. It is a strong signal to the international community that they are willing to work together to tackle the difficult challenges we face in restoring the health of the planet and its inhabitants.

Rodriguez and other Facility participants stressed the importance of increasing funding at the moment in time. They urged world leaders to think about how biodiversity loss and the climate crises are interconnected and how solutions can support the financial recovery of Covid-19 as part of the response to the energy price crisis.

The Facility’s announcement comes shortly after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC), published the third and final Working Group Report under its sixth reporting cycle. The new report, which follows previous reports that detailed the extent of global temperature rise and their likely impacts on humans and nature over the next decades, provides a roadmap for scaling up solutions. The report reveals that solutions funding will increase at least threefold in 2030 and up to sixfold in 2030 for all scenarios.