 |
The Adaptation Fund is an international fund that finances projects and programs aimed at helping developing countries to adapt to the harmful effects of climate change. It is set up under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Adaptation Fund was officially launched in 2007, [1] although it was established in 2001 at the 7th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP7) to the UNFCCC in Marrakech, Morocco [2] to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes that reduce the adverse effects of climate change facing communities, countries, and sectors. It is intended to finance climate adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol. [3]
The Adaptation Fund was initiated to be primarily financed by a share of proceeds from clean development mechanism (CDM) project activities and also with funds from other sources. However, the initial modest contribution of 131€ was made by students from Marienschule in Euskirchen, Germany, after a presentation about the climate crisis made to them by Stuart Scott, who had been attending an intercessional meeting of the negotiations. The ongoing share of CDM proceeds amounts to 2% of certified emission reductions (CER) issued for a CDM project activity. As of September 30, 2013, the Fund had accrued US$188.6 million in proceeds from CER sales. [4] As of November 30, 2013, the Fund had US$156 million available to allocate to climate adaptation projects. [5] By early November 2013, the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB) had allocated approximately US$200 million to support climate adaptation in 29 countries. [6] By October 2015, the Adaptation Fund had committed US$331 million in 54 countries. [7] Total contributions in 2022 amount US$1,237.8 million USD with Germany being the largest contributor (US$513.51 million). The fund has been increased over the years but the US has set a goal to get to 100 million US dollars by 2020 so that all countries can freely use the fund."At the Conference of the Parties (COP15) in 2009, developed countries pledged to provide new and additional resources, called the First Start Finance, approaching US$30 billion between 2010 and 2012 and with balanced allocation between mitigation and adaptation. Finally, but not the last, the Green Climate Fund was established in 2010 as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It set a goal of raising US$100 billion a year by 2020 to deliver equal amounts of funding to mitigation and adaptation in developing countries." [8] As of 2024 the Adaptation Fund has committed over 1 billion U.S dollars to the Fund since 2010. [9]
As the market for carbon credits plunged, other funding sources became more critical for the Adaptation Fund, and include donations from Annex 1 countries. These amounted to US$151 million as of Sept. 30, 2013. [10] In a major fundraising push, the AFB and secretariat surpassed its goal for pledged donations by the end of 2013, with over US$100 million pledged and donated by governments. [11]
The Adaptation Fund is managed by the Adaptation Fund Board (AFB). The secretariat of the Adaptation Fund Board provides research, advisory, administrative, and an array of other services to the Board, and consists of an international staff based in Washington, DC. [12] The World Bank serves as the trustee of the Adaptation Fund. The AFB is composed of 16 members and 16 alternates representing Annex I countries, Non-Annex I countries, Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDSs), and regional constituencies. The AFB meets three times per year in Bonn, Germany. [13] The German Parliament has conferred legal capacity to the AFB. [14] The Adaptation fund primarily works with the most vulnerable communities in developing countries. [9] The fund has worked with many communities around the world and has over 43 million beneficiaries.
One unique feature of the Adaptation Fund is its direct access mechanism, [15] which enables accredited national implementing entities (NIEs) and regional implementing agencies (RIEs) in developing countries to directly access climate adaptation financing. The Adaptation Fund has introduced Direct Access and Enhanced Direct Access. The Direct Access and Enhanced Direct Access allows countries access to the fund so that they can develop their local projects [9] An article written by Manuamorn states that "Recent literature suggests that direct national access to multilateral climate funds could promote climate change adaptation investment that focuses more on the needs of vulnerable local communities when compared to indirect access through multilateral agencies." [16] A key concept is 'direct access' to the Fund, intended as an alternative to the perceived short comings of the existing funding structures and procedures of other funds and mechanisms" [17] With the open access to the fund smaller populations can have more direct access to the fund and therefore increase the usage of the Adaptation Fund.
They use the fund in the agricultural section. "Dependence on monsoon rains makes farming operations in India vulnerable to climate change, particularly since nearly half of the country's cereals and 80% of its legumes and minor millets are grown in regions where irrigation is unavailable, 'Annual and perennial crops are being adversely affected due to increasing monsoon variability and increasingly frequent extreme weather events like hail storms'" [16] The crops that India grows are vital around the world and in their cultures. They grow staple crops such as rice and wheat. Climate change is something India is actively fighting and having the adaptation fund is crucial for India to grow its crops in these conditions. India has used the money in the adaptation fund to research new agricultural technology. To help mitigate the effects of climate change, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research has demonstrated new technologies, such as flood-tolerant rice varieties, and social interventions, like community-run seed banks and village level climate-risk management committees. Maheswari hopes that,"With money from the NAFCC, it will be possible to 'scale up' such projects and initiate new ones to" [17]
The Kyoto Protocol (Japanese: 京都議定書, Hepburn: Kyōto Giteisho) was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that commits state parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and that human-made CO2 emissions are driving it. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. There were 192 parties (Canada withdrew from the protocol, effective December 2012) to the Protocol in 2020.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the UN process for negotiating an agreement to limit dangerous climate change. It is an international treaty among countries to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system". The main way to do this is limiting the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It was signed in 1992 by 154 states at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. The treaty entered into force on 21 March 1994. "UNFCCC" is also the name of the Secretariat charged with supporting the operation of the convention, with offices on the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany.
The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is a United Nations-run carbon offset scheme allowing countries to fund greenhouse gas emissions-reducing projects in other countries and claim the saved emissions as part of their own efforts to meet international emissions targets. It is one of the three Flexible Mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM, defined in Article 12 of the Protocol, was intended to assist non-Annex I countries achieve sustainable development and reduce their carbon footprints, and to assist Annex I countries achieve compliance with greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments.
Flexible mechanisms, also sometimes known as Flexibility Mechanisms or Kyoto Mechanisms, refers to emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism and Joint Implementation. These are mechanisms defined under the Kyoto Protocol intended to lower the overall costs of achieving its emissions targets. These mechanisms enable Parties to achieve emission reductions or to remove carbon from the atmosphere cost-effectively in other countries. While the cost of limiting emissions varies considerably from region to region, the benefit for the atmosphere is in principle the same, wherever the action is taken.
Post-Kyoto negotiations refers to high level talks attempting to address global warming by limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Generally part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), these talks concern the period after the first "commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol, which expired at the end of 2012. Negotiations have been mandated by the adoption of the Bali Road Map and Decision 1/CP.13.
After the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference held on the island of Bali in Indonesia in December 2007, the participating nations adopted the Bali Road Map as a two-year process working towards finalizing a binding agreement at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference encompassed meetings of several bodies, including the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the third session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
The Copenhagen Accord is a document which delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009.
The 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference was held in Cancún, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. The conference is officially referred to as the 16th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 6th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties (CMP 6) to the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, the two permanent subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC — the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) — held their 33rd sessions. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference extended the mandates of the two temporary subsidiary bodies, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA), and they met as well.
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A number of governments across the world took a variety of actions.
The Kyoto Protocol was an international treaty which extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon established a High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing (AGF) on 12 February 2010 for the duration of ten months. The group's aim was to "study potential sources of revenue that will enable achievement of the level of climate change financing that was promised during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009."
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of February 2023, 195 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2020, but rejoined in 2021.
The 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP17) was held in Durban, South Africa, from 28 November to 11 December 2011 to establish a new treaty to limit carbon emissions.
Brazil has established a strong public policy using Clean Development Mechanism Projects to reduce methane emissions from landfills. An important component of these projects is the sale of avoided emissions by the private market to generate revenue.
A National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) is a type of plan submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by least developed countries, to describe the country's perception of its most "urgent and immediate needs to adapt to climate change". NAPAs are not supposed to include original research, but use existing information and include profiles of priority projects that are intended to address those needs that have been identified.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a fund for climate finance that was established within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its objective is to assist developing countries with climate change adaptation and mitigation activities. The GCF is an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the UNFCCC. It is based in Incheon, South Korea. It is governed by a Board of 24 members and supported by a Secretariat.
Climate finance is an umbrella term for financial resources such as loans, grants, or domestic budget allocations for climate change mitigation, adaptation or resiliency. Finance can come from private and public sources. It can be channeled by various intermediaries such as multilateral development banks or other development agencies. Those agencies are particularly important for the transfer of public resources from developed to developing countries in light of UN Climate Convention obligations that developed countries have.
The 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference was the 18th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 8th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The conference took place from Monday 26 November to Saturday 8 December 2012, at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha.
The United Nations Climate Change Conferences are yearly conferences held in the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They serve as the formal meeting of the UNFCCC parties – the Conference of the Parties (COP) – to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Starting in 2005 the conferences have also served as the "Conference of the Parties Serving as the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol" (CMP); also parties to the convention that are not parties to the protocol can participate in protocol-related meetings as observers. From 2011 to 2015 the meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement as part of the Durban platform, which created a general path towards climate action. Any final text of a COP must be agreed by consensus.
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
