02/05/2011
A new fund aimed at mobilizing resources
to help developing countries mitigate the
impact of global warming must encourage
private sector financing in an effort to
tackle its most devastating effects, the
top United Nations climate change official
said on Friday (April 29).
Speaking after the first
gathering of the Green Climate Fund's transitional
committee in Mexico City, Christiana Figueres,
Executive Secretary of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
said private sector investment is essential
for ensuring a low-carbon future for poorer
countries.
"To get government
and private capital flowing freely on this
scale, the Green Climate Fund needs to become
a trusted avenue for deploying climate funding
to the best effect and it needs to offer
a compelling route for private sector capital
to engage in bigger climate investments
in the developing world", said Ms.
Figueres.
Composed of finance
and climate change experts, the transitional
committee's task is to propose an effective
design for the fund in time for the next
UN Climate Conference in Durban in December.
"The launch of
the Green Climate Fund is one of the significant
decisions that nations reached in Cancún,
which show that governments can take repeated
steps forward, including this year in Durban",
she said.
The fund is being launched
as part of long-term financial support agreed
last year at the UN climate change conference
in Cancún, Mexico, under which industrialized
countries committed to a goal of jointly
mobilizing US$ 100 billion per year by 2020.
The fund's finances
would be raised from both public and private
sources and directly linked to meaningful
climate change mitigation actions and transparency
on implementation.
Source: UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
+ More
MMA and CEBDS meet to
discuss strategies for sustainable development
09/05/2011
The Minister of the Environment, Izabella
Teixeira, and a group of business leaders
announced on Friday (May 6), in Brasília,
the creation of a joint forum to formulate
strategies for the medium and long term
environmental policies. The initiative is
part of the government's actions to advance
in the implementation of sustainable production
and consumption in the country.
The government and the
productive sector want to announce at Rio+20
(the UN Conference on Sustainable Development)
an environmental agenda aimed at the gradual
transition towards a greener economy. The
conference will be held in the city of Rio
de Janeiro in June 2012.
"We want to expand
the dialogue with the productive sector",
stated the minister during the meeting.
The Brazilian Business Council for the Sustainable
Development (CEBDS) is composed of presidents
of some of the largest business groups in
the country.