The Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established four years ago in order to provide aid to poorer countries as they cut down harmful greenhouse gas emissions and look for ways to adapt to climate change.
To give the GCF a much-needed boost, President Barack Obama is set to donate $3 billion. A formal announcement of the pledge is slated on the occasion of the G20 meeting in Australia over the weekend.
"Along with other nations that have pledged support, we'll help vulnerable communities with early-warning systems, stronger defenses against storm surges, and climate-resilient infrastructure," said Obama. "We'll help farmers plant more durable crops. We'll help developing economies reduce their carbon pollution and invest in clean energy."
Obama's GCF pledge comes just a few days after the U.S. president and the Chinese president Xi Jinping made a bilateral agreement on the issue of climate change.
So far, Obama's pledge is the biggest to date, and it could spark the current contributions to double and reach $6 billion.
However, there are some environmental advocates who are unimpressed by the U.S. pledge. According to Friends of the Earth, the $3 billion pledge of Obama is way below the actual amount that is required to help developing countries.
Hela Cheikhrouhou, GCF's executive director, lauded Obama's pledge and described it as a game-changer.
"It could have a domino effect on all other contributions," said Cheikhrouhou.
Together with investments coming from the private sector, the GCF will also help push global markets into the field of clean energy. It will also create opportunities to both entrepreneurs and manufacturers to utilize green technology.
"The fund will be able to deploy innovative instruments," said Abyd Karmali, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's managing director of climate finance. "That is the key distinguishing characteristic of the GCF; it has the opportunity to mobilize significant flows of private capital."
Other developed countries pledged contributions in 2009 to build up an annual amount of $100 billion by the year 2020 and aid developing countries in carbon emission handling.
France and Germany then pledged $1 billion. Other countries that gave their own pledges include Denmark, Sweden, South Korea, Norway, Switzerland, Mexico, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and the Netherlands.
