GEI Joins Talks on South-South Cooperation Climate Fund at COP20

LIMA (Dec. 17, 2014) – During the recent UN climate talks held in Lima, Deputy Director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Xie Zhenhua, reasserted China’s intention to establish a South-South Cooperation Fund for tackling climate change. Chinese environmental NGO the Global Environmental Institute (GEI) warmly welcomed the announcement and took the opportunity to put forward questions and suggestions to Deputy Director Xie on several occasions during meetings in Lima.

On December 8, GEI was invited to take part in the South-South Cooperation on Climate Change Forum, which was co-sponsored by the NDRC, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and supported by other organizations including WWF.

View of the Forum, GEI was honored to participate! – GEI 2014

The Forum began with a speech from NDRC’s Deputy Director Xie, in which he said China will double the existing funding for South-South Cooperation each year from 2015 until the funding reaches 140 million RMB, and furthermore establish a South-South Cooperation Fund for tackling climate change.

During the Forum’s first high-level panel discussion titled “Enabling conditions: science, policy, fund and institution”, GEI’s Executive Director Madam Jin Jiaman expressed her vision for an effective mechanism to make use of the South-South Cooperation Climate Fund, how third party involvement can enhance the effective use of funds using GEI’s Myanmar project as an example, and the importance of transparency in the use of South-South cooperation funds.

GEI’s Mme JIN Jiaman (far right) shares her perspective on the panel – GEI 2014

On the morning of December 11, during a meeting between the NDRC’s Deputy Director Xie and representatives of NGOs, Madam Jin raised questions on the uses of the South-South Cooperation Climate Fund and how NGOs might participate.

In response, Deputy Director Xie expressed China’s hopes that South-South cooperation will increase the capacity of developing countries in terms of their response to climate change while stating that companies, NGOs, and other parties are welcome to participate in the South-South Cooperation Climate Fund established by China.

He went on to acknowledge that many NGOs have already launched successful collaborations in the area of South-South cooperation on climate change, which demonstrates how all parties can act in response to climate change.

The panel shared diverse and expert opinions that will surely lead to a greener world – GEI 2014

Deputy Director Xie also expressed that the establishment of a South-South Cooperation Climate Fund signified China’s intention to provide further financial support for developing countries and that the objective of establishing the fund was to establish a long-term mechanism for South-South cooperation, while support for developing countries should provide financial support rather than seeking to profit from them. China also hopes to strengthen the capacity of other developing countries to access finance from the Green Climate Fund. 

GEI has already been working to address the issue of climate change for many years. In 2008, GEI began to facilitate unofficial dialogue between Chinese and US climate policy makers, and since 2009 has hosted side events at the UNFCCC climate talks to provide a valuable reference in the global response to climate change. More recently in 2013 GEI begun to research the topic of South-South cooperation climate funding.