In what seemed to be a turnabout of Australian foreign policy, Australia pledged to provide 200 million Australian dollars ($166 million) to the Green Climate Fund — a move that helped the international multilateral fund for climate change projects reach its $10 billion goal.
While the announcement at U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, came as a welcome surprise, one question remains for many participants: How would donor countries define what projects and funding will be classified under climate finance?
Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, told Devex that GCF was set up to be funded by “primarily public over private” sector money because “public money will and should go where private [sector money] won’t.”