Valerie Volcovici and Mitra Taj Reuters Yahoo News 11 Dec 14;
LIMA (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, expressing deep concern about slow action to combat climate change, told governments at U.N. talks in Lima on Tuesday there was no "time for tinkering" and urged a radical shift to greener economies.
Ban said there was still a chance of limiting global warming to an internationally agreed ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times to help avert floods, droughts, desertification and rising sea levels.
"But the window of opportunity is fast narrowing," he told delegates from about 190 nations at the Dec. 1-12 talks working on a deal, due in Paris in a year's time, to limit rising world greenhouse gas emissions.
"This is not a time for tinkering; it is a time for transformation," he said. Despite signs of progress, "I am deeply concerned that our collective action does not match our common responsibilities."
"We must act now," he said. He also urged wider involvement by the private sector.
The U.N. talks got a lift on Tuesday when the U.N.'s new Green Climate Fund reached a U.N. target of $10 billion for a first capitalization, helped by a pledge of about $166 million by Australia and $64 million by Belgium.
"We've got above one of the psychologically important milestones," Hela Cheikhrouhou, head of the fund, told Reuters. Pledges by 24 nations now total $10.14 billion, she said.
She said the fund, which aims to help developing nations cut emissions and adapt to changes such as heat waves and more powerful storms, was likely to start disbursing funds for projects in 2016.
Ban urged developed nations to "meet and exceed" a wider goal set in 2009 of mobilizing at least $100 billion a year, in both public and private finance, by 2020 to help developing nations.
The Lima talks are trying to work out draft elements of a deal for Paris next year but face numerous fault lines about what should be included.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to visit the talks on Thursday to add momentum.
Developing nations are pushing for a more ambitious outcome, with some calling for a target of cutting world greenhouse gas emissions to a net zero by 2050. OPEC nations, worried about loss of income from a shift to renewable energy, favor much vaguer long-term goals.
"We cannot have a climate agreement that condemns Mother Earth and humanity to death," in favor of enriching the few, Bolivia's left-wing President Evo Morales said, denouncing capitalism and consumption.
And Maria van der Hoeven, head of the International Energy Agency, said world leaders have a "golden opportunity" with plunging oil prices to put a price on carbon emissions since cheaper fuel makes the move less risky politically.
Separately, Peru's government denounced Greenpeace for laying out a banner promoting renewable energy near the famed Nazca lines, giant 1,500-year-old depictions of monkeys, hummingbirds and other creatures etched in the desert.
The government filed a criminal complaint against Greenpeace and asked a judge to ban activists who took part in the action from leaving the country.
(Writing by Alister Doyle; Editing by James Dalgleish and Cynthia Osterman)
Green Climate Fund to back energy 'paradigm shift': director
Megan Rowling PlanetArk 11 Dec 14;
The Green Climate Fund will invest in energy projects that shift away from "business as usual" and have a significant impact on curbing climate change, its executive director has said.
"I think there is genuine appetite to really move the boundaries, and move into those areas that have so far not been the mainstream of investments in terms of technologies," Héla Cheikhrouhou told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Her comments come after green groups and development agencies sent a letter last week asking the fledgling Green Climate Fund (GCF) to adopt an explicit policy that its funds will not be used directly or indirectly for financing fossil fuel or other polluting energy initiatives.
That request came in the wake of revelations that Japan had lent around $1 billion of its early climate finance to construct three coal-fired power plants in Indonesia.
"We cannot allow the fossil fuel industry, whose products are the main cause of climate change, to take the limited funds intended for responding to the devastating impacts of climate change," Samantha Smith, leader of WWF's climate and energy initiative, said in a statement on the letter.
"Renewable energy must be prioritized in the distribution of climate funding and fossil fuels excluded," she added.
Cheikhrouhou said the Green Climate Fund's board had identified three areas of focus in energy technology: clean energy solutions, efficient cities and industries, and clean transport.
"In those three result areas...there is a clear wish to sharply move away from business as usual," she said in an interview on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in Lima.
The fund - which won additional donor pledges on Tuesday, lifting total contributions above an informal target of $10 billion - will allocate resources to help poorer countries adopt greener energy systems and deal with the impacts of climate change according to six criteria, its head said.
Within those, "they need to prove to us that this is something that promotes a paradigm shift, and that its climate impact is quite significant," she added.
CHEAPER TO INVEST NOW
Cheikhrouhou did not say whether the GCF would draw up a list of things it will not fund, as civil society groups called for in their letter.
But once project proposals begin to come in next year, the fund will compare them "and see which ones are really moving us away from the unsustainable path we are on," she said.
She urged developing countries that have not already done so to designate a national authority or focal point to work with the fund. Just over half - 70 states - have taken this step, and 27 of them have requested support to get ready and access money.
"I think it will require quite a bit of handholding to the countries, to the institutions, so they internalize our rules and how we work, and what we can finance," she said.
Besides helping developing countries pursue low-carbon growth, the GCF aims to allocate half of its resources over time to projects that help poor communities adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas.
The fund's board hopes to approve a "sample" of projects and programs by the time of the U.N. next major climate conference in a year's time in Paris, where governments are due to agree a new global deal on climate change, Cheikhrouhou said.
Money will start flowing to projects on the ground in 2016, she added.
She urged more countries, including developing nations, to join the 24 that have contributed so far to the fund.
"The data is there...it's much cheaper to invest now than years from now" to deal with climate change, she said.
(Editing by Laurie Goering)
