Green Climate Fund News

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced America's return to the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the centerpiece of a raft of day-one executive orders aimed at restoring U.S. leadership in combating global warming.The announcements also included a sweeping order to review all of former President Donald Trump's actions weakening climate change protections, the revocation of a vital permit for TC Energy's Keystone XL oil pipeline project from Canada…

Climate Fund Managers (CFM), the manager of the Climate Investor One facility (CI1), have announced that construction has begun of its 48MW near-shore wind farm in Tra Vinh province Vietnam.CI1’s Construction Equity Fund has committed USD 71 million to the project company, “Tra Vinh Wind Power Company”, which is jointly funded by Korean energy firm ST International. Vestas, the pioneering global supplier of wind turbines will act as EPC for the project.The collaboration makes use of ST International’s extensive knowledge of the Asian energy market, Vestas’s expertise in developing, constructing and operating wind power facilities, and CI1’s innovative end to end financing solution.As one of the fastest-growing Asian economies…

The U.N.'s climate chief said on Friday she will step down in July, at the end of a six-year term, and praised governments for reaching a 195-nation deal in Paris in December to shift the world economy from fossil fuels to cleaner energies. Christiana Figueres, a 59-year-old Costa Rican, said she would not accept any extension of her term as head of the Bonn-based U.N. Climate Change Secretariat after what she called the historic Paris Agreement. "We now move into a phase of urgent implementation…

U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday laid out a list of demands they seek before making any deal to end the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports in the wide-ranging government funding bill. With oil prices falling to nearly seven-year lows of less than $40 a barrel, producers are desperate to open crude sales to global markets. They say lifting the ban would give U.S. allies an alternative to Russia and OPEC countries for oil, breathe life into the drilling industry, and increase U.S. energy security. Opponents say it would hurt jobs at refineries, raise the amount of oil carried by trains, which have suffered a slew of recent accidents while carrying crude, and hurt the environment. "I've heard a long list, a long list of things," Senator Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, told reporters.

Brussels sets end-2016 deadline for CO2-cutting proposals by IMO. The shipping industry expects to be stung by a carbon levy as momentum building from climate talks in Paris starting this month makes a cut to its greenhouse gas emissions likely. Any tax - either a levy based on fuel use by diesel-driven ships or a market based mechanism - would add to rising costs for the industry, which transports 90 percent of world trade. A draft Paris text makes scant mention of reducing CO2 from marine bunker fuels. Yet ship industry sources say some form of taxation is expected to come in the wake of any deal at the Nov.30-Dec. 11 summit. "We do expect that sooner or later shipping will be regulated on CO2…

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressing deep concern about slow action to combat climate change, told governments at U.N. talks in Lima on Tuesday there was no "time for tinkering" and urged a radical shift to greener economies. Ban said there was still a chance of limiting global warming to an internationally agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times to limit more floods, droughts, desertification and rising sea levels. "But the window of opportunity is fast narrowing," he told delegates from about 190 nations at the Dec. 1-12 talks working on a deal due in Paris in a year's time to limit rising world greenhouse gas emissions. "This is not a time for tinkering; it is a time for transformation," he said. "We must act now," he said.

2.2% of the world’s total Green House Gas emissions during 2012 compared to 2.8% in 2007. Shipping’s total emissions have reduced by more than 10% during the same period. In advance of the United Nations Climate Conference in Lima (1-12 December), the global trade association for ship operators – the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) – says that the industry is on track to reduce its emissions by more than 20% by 2020 (compared to 2005) with further reductions going forward. This and other information about the impressive progress which the shipping industry is making to reduce its CO2 emissions is set out in a special brochure prepared for the UNFCCC Climate Change Conference (COP 20).

Speaking to delegates at the opening of the Nor-Shipping event in Oslo, the  Chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), Masamichi Morooka, said that impending new legislation to protect the environment potentially presented an additional industry-wide cost of more than half a trillion dollars between 2015 and 2025. This is around 50 billion dollars of additional capital and operating cost in every single year for a 10 year period and beyond. “As many companies struggle to survive during the difficult years ahead…

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) is representing global shipowners at the United Nations (UNFCCC) Climate Change Conference in Doha (COP 18). At an event in Doha (27 November) hosted by the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO), ICS will report on the further progress being made by shipowners worldwide to reduce their CO2 emissions and improve fuel efficiency. ICS comments on the recent UNFCCC secretariat report on means of long term ‘climate financing’, which…

International Chamber of Shipping chairman, Masamichi Mooroka, has written to Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), following her reported comments that fuel charges on shipping and aviation could raise one quarter of the total money to be directed by developed nations to the UNFCCC Green Climate Fund. In the letter ICS challenges several simplistic assumptions apparently made by Ms Lagarde. The ICS chairman notes that Ms Lagarde has been quoted as saying that "charges on international aviation and maritime emissions would raise about a quarter of the $100 billion needed for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries-resources that developed countries have committed to mobilize by 2020".

The Board of Directors of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), whose member national shipowners’ associations represent all sectors and trades and more than 80% of the world merchant fleet, met in London on 6 February. ICS members reviewed the continuing threat to shipping from Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Noting that the capability of Somali pirates is actually higher than it has ever been, ICS believes that effective compliance with Best Management Practices by shipping…

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa (COP 17, Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, 2011), the global shipping industry, Oxfam and WWF have joined forces to suggest to governments how the further reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping might best be regulated. Oxfam, WWF and the International Chamber of Shipping (which represents over 80% of the world merchant fleet) call on delegates to COP 17 to give the International Maritime Organization (IMO) clear guidance on continuing its work on reducing shipping emissions through the development of Market Based Measures (MBMs). The organisations maintain…