British Prime Ministers Gordon Brown of Britain and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia have accepted to co-chair a high level advisory group responsible for climate change financing, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said. “Its mission is to mobilize the financial resources for climate change pledged at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,” Ban said in announcing the new group.
He said other members will include heads of state and government, high-level officials from ministries and Central Banks, as well as experts on public finance, development and related issues. Governments from developing and developed countries will have a balanced share of responsibility in raising funds.
Ban said the advisory group will develop “practical proposals” to significantly scale-up both short-term and long-term financing for mitigation and adaptation strategies in developing countries. December’s climate change summit in Copenhagen ended without a formal text to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But governments agreed to mobilize funding both from the public and private sectors to the tune of $100 billion a year by 2020 to help countries worldwide fight global warming.
Countries most vulnerable to climate change will have priority access to the funds, which will be used to support adaptation, mitigation and technology development and transfer.
The advisory group is to prepare funding programs to be submitted to meetings in May and June of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) whose members will meet in Mexico in December to make final recommendations on the use of the funds.