AusAID Deputy Director and Co-Chair of the Board of the Green Climate Fund, Ewen McDonald, recently signed the Headquarters Agreement of the Fund, cementing the Republic of Korea as the host country of the Green Climate Fund, with its headquarters located in Songdo, Incheon City.
The signing, with the Korean Minister for Foreign Affairs, took place in the margins of the Global Green Growth Summit 2013, an annual event centered on green growth. The summit is hosted by the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in partnership with the Global Green Growth Institute.
The Green Climate Fund is a new international fund being established to help poor people adapt to the major development challenges posed by climate change and to contribute to global emissions reductions.
Establishing the headquarters in the Republic of Korea means the Green Climate Fund will become the first global climate fund hosted in the Asia–Pacific, and is an important recognition of the key role of the region in addressing the development challenges posed by climate change.
In his speech at the summit, Mr McDonald said the Green Climate Fund, currently under design, aims to be ambitious and transformative, deliver the highest impact and results, and could become a significant channel of funding to help meet the global long-term climate finance goal of mobilising US$100 billion per year from public and private sources by 2020.