Jamaica Eyes Multi-billion Dollar Climate Change Fund

Jamaica is preparing to tap into US$10.3 billion available to fund climate change adaptation and mitigation projects.

The country is joining 200 other developing states in formulating viable proposals to access financing from the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

Based in South Korea, the GCF was founded as a mechanism to assist developing countries in adaptation  and mitigation  practices to counter climate change.

Jamaica has, so far, submitted a proposal to the GCF for readiness financing amounting to US$300,000.

According to Principal Director, Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Albert Daley, this will assist with financing “to help to put in place the system and the procedures to enable the country to access funding, training, public awareness, and setting up the work programme.”

“We are hoping to get word from the GCF before the end of the month and if that happens, we will be well on our way with some funds to start put in place what we need to do to prepare ourselves to get proposals out, hopefully by early next year and thereafter,” he added.

Mr. Daley, who was speaking with JIS News during the opening of a three-day Climate Finance Readiness Training workshop for Government entities at the Hotel Four Seasons in St. Andrew on June 20, explained that “this is the preliminary funding necessary to help us get our house in order”.

The Principal Director said that while there are no time restrictions for submitting proposals, “those who are in the line first are most likely to get the funding that they need,” so Jamaica has to move swiftly to put the appropriate measures in place in order to access the funds available.

“So, we want to get in line very quickly and that is why we are very keen on having this workshop to sensitise our government agencies as to how they can contribute to the process of developing good projects,” he said.

The Principal Director said it is expected that more funds will be made available over time to the GCF. It is anticipated that by 2020, at least US$100 billion will be available each year for climate financing.

“We want to be prepared to be able to access funding that’s available, not just from GCF but any other entity that has funding,” he said.

Competitive Process

Also speaking with JIS News, climate finance expert based in the United Kingdom, Dr. Jason Yapp, agrees that the process to access climate funding is “going to be very competitive”.

“Every developing country is going to fight for it. So, the challenge is how do we develop high quality, competitive and good proposals that the Fund will support,” he said.

Dr. Yapp informed that eight projects have already been approved, so the GCF Board will consider the next eight projects.

In the meantime, Chief Technical Director in the Economic Growth Ministry, Lt. Colonel (Ret’d) Oral Khan, noted that climate change mitigation and adaptation in the years to come will require “enormous amounts of financial resources”.

He emphasised that Small Island Developing States like Jamaica must begin to find out how best to access these resources for climate change financing.

“From what we know, accessing climate financing can be very challenging. Already, some of the funds are underutilised and it’s believed to be because of a lack of appreciation of all the conditionalities which must be met in order to access the funds,” he said.

Mr. Khan said the workshops are providing an opportunity for participants to formulate plans which will lead to solutions to deal with the complexities of international climate finance as well as how best to absorb these funds into the country’s national public finance systems.

The workshops are being hosted by the Climate Change Division in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, in conjunction with the German Institute, GIZ.

During the workshops, representatives will be introduced to international climate change finance options and conditions for accessing them.  The seminars will also provide government entities with a common basis for further internal discussions on policy and institutional requirements.

The overall objective of the training workshops is to support the implementation of measures that lead to more climate resilience and lower emission development in Jamaica.