By Jason Hopkins, 7-11-18, at The Daily Caller:
GCF Headquarters, Songdo, South Korea
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) has continued to falter since President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal of the Paris Agreement — and taking with it billions in pledged dollars.
The United Nations launched the GCF in 2010 to promote environmentally friendly initiatives in developing countries. Based in Songdo, South Korea, the GCF employs 250 people and has committed nearly $4 billion into international projects that aim to help third-world countries mitigate the effects of climate change. Former President Barack Obama was a major supporter of the GCF and had pledged the U.S. would donate $3 billion over the course of several years. His administration had given $1 billion before the end of his second term.
The GCF, however, never attracted the same level of support from the succeeding administration.
Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise when he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in 2017 and has not given another dollar since. Trump’s moves mean the GCF is $2 billion short of what it expected its slush fund to be.
“Now with the United States pulling from this Paris agreement, I’m concerned now how to mobilize the necessary financial support for many developing countries who do not have the capacity to address this climate change issues,” former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated to CNBC on Tuesday. “They do not have any responsibilities historically speaking. Therefore it is absolute necessary that the international community uses its political will to work on this matter.”
Unfortunately for the GCF, it has lost money elsewhere.
Instead of doling out cash, the United Kingdom provided promissory notes — pledges to pay when money is needed — to the group. This arrangement proved devastating after anxiety over Brexit greatly reduced the value of the Euro and the British pound. The devaluation of both currencies has resulted in the GCF losing another $1 billion.
The lack of cash has made green-lighting new, expensive projects nearly impossible.
Howard Bamsey abruptly resigned his position as GCF’s executive director following a June 4 meeting where no new projects were approved. Bamsey, an Australian diplomat, left after less than two years on the job.
“I have been considering the best timing for my departures from the secretariat,” he explained in a letter. “Pressing personal issues meant I would simply not be able to stay until the end of next year which is when replenishment is likely to conclude.”
The collapse of negotiations will ultimately mean 11 different projects, costing nearly $1 billion, will simply have to wait. Projects such as water management in Guatemala, solar panels in Tonga and climate initiatives in 17 countries will have to wait at least three months before moving forward.
Beyond a lack of cash, a lack of experience from board members has also been cited as a major contributor to the GCF’s failure.
“Many of these people did not know how to navigate the minefield and the dynamics of the board, so there were a lot of little things that triggered people — and then those things spiraled into an hour long argument that could’ve been very easily avoided,” Brandon Wu, a director of policy and campaigns at Action Aid USA, said in a statement to Devex, a global development publication.
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This organization was just another way for the UN to milk the US for more money. They set up shop and hired 250 people based on O’s promise to keep them running with taxpayer dollars. Thanks to Trump, that gravy train stops, and soon those employees will be free to go find real jobs.
Recently the GCF was asked to report on their previous spending before donors were willing to contribute more money, but they couldn’t decide who to put in charge of it and told prospective donors it would take at least six months to compile such a report.
Helping Guatemala improve their water might be a worthwhile project, especially if it employs the locals and keeps them from coming north, but even so, that can be done through the foreign aid we send them.
But solar panels in Tonga? Raise your hand if you didn’t know what a Tonga was either. I had to look it up. Tonga is a tiny little island in the South Pacific near Fiji and has approximately 100,000 residents. It’s economy is based on tourism, hand-made items and some agriculture. It was named the sixth most corrupt country in the world by Forbes magazine in 2008. So yeah, it makes perfect sense to spend millions on solar panels – not.
Kudos to Trump for getting us out of this organization that amounts to poorly spent international welfare.
~Kathy
Categories: Political
Pesky Truth 
So Trump has saved us another $2B on this move. He’s also just got NATO to contribute more towards the upkeep and upgrading of NATO capabilities and to pay some of their delinquent contributions. It seems, almost daily, we’re hearing about how he is saving the country money. Has anyone seen any kind of tally of money he is saving via his actions? Think about it, he even is saving about $2B on the two new Air Force One airplanes over what was budgeted. He is apparently saving money right and left and I haven’t seen any accounting of it. Of course, the MSM would never report on anything as inconsequential as that [sarcasm].
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>>”But solar panels in Tonga?”
The key to understanding probably lies in your sentence about corruption in Tonga and in following the money to see who is producing what will predictably be overpriced solar panels. How much shall we bet there’s a greedy leftist at the end of that trail, and that greedy leftist is donating to the Barack Obama Library fund, the Clinton Foundation, or any one of a dozen Soros organizations? That’s how the game works, and there isn’t a leftist worth his salt who doesn’t know how to play it.
Bravo to Trump for putting an end to this crafty form of wealth transfer. If the leftists really want to “help” that bad, I suggest they hit up their wealthy liberal friends for money. How many billions are Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, George Soros, Oprah Winfrey, and all of the Hollywood liberals worth? This would be pocket change for them, so their failure to step in and offer to fill the void only proves that it’s a scam.
P.S.
I knew where Tonga was! Not long ago I had a cab driver whose accent I couldn’t pinpoint, so I asked where he was from and he said Tonga. I confessed that I didn’t know where that was, and he informed me that is was near Fiji. See how small the world is? Sadly it’s not small enough that I could find Fiji on a map without help.
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Amen, CW. Let the lefties pay for it if they’re so determined to make s**thole countries green. Plus it would probably cost a lot less, because what private enterprise can do for thousands, the government can do for millions.
PS – I may be the only one who didn’t know where Tonga is – my husband-person also knew. I did know where Fiji is though. 🙂
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