World Bank and UN Launch New Climate Finance Options

Online, December 2, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The World Bank and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) yesterday launched new Climate Finance Options on a new website to make it easier for developing countries to access the myriad of grants, funds and loans intended to support climate change projects.

The announcement of the new Climate Finance Options was made on the sidelines of the Cancun climate change summit with the aim to make it easier for policymakers and entrepreneurs to find their way within the growing number of financing mechanisms that have emerged as industrialised nations attempt to provide $30bn of climate funding over the next three years.

For many developing countries, accessing climate finance from the growing number of funds is a complex and time-consuming business. The Climate Finance Options come as a result of this difficulty.

Also, the new climate finance came as the EU negotiating team in Cancun released a report detailing how it provided €2.2bn of extra climate aid in 2010 and is on track to deliver the €7.2bn the bloc promised to provide between 2010 and 2012 as part of the fast start climate finance commitments made in last year's Copenhagen Accord.

The report disclosed that the total climate finance provided in 2010 will fall just shy of the €2.4bn that had been planned as a result of a shortfall from Italy. It also confirmed that 52% of the climate funding was provided in the form of loans or equity investments with the remainder delivered as grants.

Artur Runge-Metzger, the head of the European Commission team in Cancun, defended the use of loans insisting that they were a more effective means of funding energy efficiency projects than grants.

However, some developing countries remain wary of climate funding initiatives that would require repayments and are demanding that the bulk of the money promised by industrialised nations should be provided as grants. Questions are also being asked about the extent to which the $30bn promised by industrialised nations represents additional climate funding or a repurposing of existing development budgets.

Find out more about grants and funding for energy efficiency initiatives to which we can help you gain access, or contact Envido on 020 7199 0090 to speak to a member of our grants and funding team for FREE advice on how to apply.