Twenty-nine countries, including the United States, have jointly pledged $5.25 billion for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to provide more funding for developing countries in protecting biodiversity, addressing threats of climate change, as well as controlling plastics and toxic chemical wastes.
The Philippines is one of the developing countries, which received GEF funding for the past 13 years. According to the GEF website, 130 various environmental projects worth $803.97 million of the Philippine government and local government units were financed from the GEF grants.
In a news statement, the GEF said the $5.25 billion pledge increases the GEF’s funding by nearly 30 percent.
“It comes at a critical moment for developing countries whose ability to tackle worsening environmental challenges has been strained by fiscal pressures from the Covid-19 pandemic and rising inflation,” the GEF said.
The GEF did not identify the 29 newest donor countries, but the US said it has pledged $600.8 million for the next four years.
According to the US State Department, the Biden administration will request the US Congress to allocate $150.2 million to GEF contribution.
“This is the United States’ largest GEF pledge ever,” the US State Department stressed.
“This pledge aligns with continuing US priorities and supports the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to addressing climate change, conserving global carbon sinks and other critical ecosystems, and restoring the health of our ocean.”
The GEF is the primary source of financing for biodiversity protection globally and is the only multilateral fund working across all aspects of environmental health.
Its financial and policy support helps developing countries meet their obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Since 1991, it has provided $22 billion in grants and mobilized another $119 billion in co-financing to help developing countries save the Earth. It has so far contributed to seven replenishments.
For the GEF’s eight programming period, known as GEF-8, biodiversity protection will get the biggest share. GEF-8 will run from July 2022 to June 2026.
“This support will be vital to the achievement of the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature, which aims to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 through safeguards of land and ocean territory with globally important biodiversity,” the GEF said.
Other priorities in GEF-8 include:
- Addressing threats from climate change
- Land degradation
- Chemicals and waste
- Alleviating pressures on the ocean and international waters
“The US pledge will help protect tropical rainforests and other critical carbon sinks; address ocean plastics pollution; combat wildlife trafficking and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; and reduce hazardous transboundary pollutants such as PCBs and mercury that can affect Americans’ health,” the US State Department said.