Earth Today | Jamaica eyes second grant from Green Climate Fund

JAMAICA ALREADY has its sights set on a second readiness grant from the Green Climate Fund (GCF), even as it prepares to ink the agreement on the first, intended to boost the island's ability to access financing for climate-change adaptation and mitigation.

"We are not going to wait for this one to come in," revealed UnaMay Gordon, principal director for the Climate Change Division (CCD), the GCF's national designated authority (NDA) in Jamaica.

She was referencing the agreement for the first applied-for grant, valued at US$300,000.

That grant is to finance, over 18 months, the establishment of a GCF desk at the offices of the CCD, a set of national stakeholder consultations and two projects ready for funding consideration.

The second grant under development looks at private-sector engagement.

"We believe that we cannot do climate change without the private sector, so we are taking steps to ensure that the private sector is engaged," Gordon told The Gleaner last Tuesday, weeks after returning from the GCF structured dialogue for the Caribbean, hosted in Belize in June.

Stakeholders

The structured dialogue brought together stakeholders, among them NDAs such as Jamaica's CCD, and accredited entities, together with civil society organisations, private-sector representatives, and GCF board members and secretariat staff.

The objective was to have participants share experiences in engaging with the fund and develop a road map for countries in the region by identifying project opportunities while mapping readiness and project-preparation support needs that the GCF can fill.

"We are looking for another readiness grant for engaging the private sector and not only the private sector in Jamaica, because our private sector is small ... . Jamaica is leading the charge to support the regional private sector, bringing in the MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) in a big way," Gordon explained.

"We need to have a regional engagement where the private sector sits together and discusses climate change. So we are taking steps to ask the GCF for resources," she added.

As NDA, the CCD is the first step to engage with the GCF, whose mandate it is "to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries, and to help adapt vulnerable societies to the unavoidable impacts of climate change".

Further, the CCD provides broad strategic oversight for the GCF's activities in country, and leadership on the administration of readiness and preparatory support funding. It is also tasked to implement the no-objection procedure on funding proposals that are submitted to the fund for consideration. This latter function is intended to ensure that such projects are consistent with national climate-change priorities and plans.

Up to last month, the GCF had raised the equivalent of US$10.3 billion in pledges from 43 states and disbursed some US$6.3 million in readiness support.