France ups climate finance pledge to €5bn
Francois Hollande calls on other countries to help meet UN's $100bn climate funding goal ahead of critical talks in Paris at the end of this year
France has become the latest country to pledge billions of dollars of funding to help some of the world's poorest countries cope with the worst impacts of climate change.
The host of this year's Paris climate change talks will increase its climate finance commitment from €3bn to €5bn (US$5.6bn) a year by 2020, said President Francois Hollande at the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday.
He said the new money would be offered as grants rather than loans to poor and vulnerable countries.
"We have to make sure that emerging economies, developing countries can be sure they will be helped," Hollande said.
He also called on other countries to set out their funding plans ahead of the Paris climate talks, when the UN is hoping to deliver on a previously agreed target to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year from 2020.
"Between now and Paris in two months' time, we will have to continue mobilising finance through the World Bank, development banks, private banks and states to make sure we do reach that level," said Hollande.
France's pledge comes after the UK on Sunday announced it would increase its climate funding to £5.8bn between 2016 and 2021, which represents a doubling on the pledge from the past five years.
China last week also promised $3.1bn through a new South-South climate co-operation fund, fuelling hopes that the Paris Summit may yet deliver a breakthrough on the contentious topic of climate funding.
This article is part of BusinessGreen's Road to Paris hub, hosted in association with PwC
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