UNITED NATIONS (AP) – United States (US) climate envoy John Kerry said on Wednesday he thinks rich countries can finally meet their pledge to provide USD100 billion annually to help poor nations cope with climate change beginning this year – and will definitely reach that amount in 2023.
That would be at least two years later than the 2020 target set by developed countries at a United Nations (UN) climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 for providing that funding to help developing countries adapt to global warming and mitigate further rises in temperature.
Kerry told an informal UN Security Council meeting on “Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace and Security” that President Joe Biden is committed to increasing US funding to developing countries to help with climate change.
Last September, he said, Biden promised to increase annual US climate finance to over USD11 billion, quadrupling the funding from the 2009-2017 presidency of Barack Obama, when Biden was vice president.
“And that increase is going to help us to deliver on USD100 billion,” Kerry said. “We’re doing just a little bit shy of that for 2022. It is absolutely clear we will have it for 2023. I still think we can get it for 2022.”
Kerry said as part of increased US efforts at last November’s UN climate summit in Glasgow, Biden announced “an emergency plan for adaptation and resilience”. It “is going to help more than 500 million people in developing countries to be able to manage the impacts of the climate crisis by 2030”, he said.
