As I announced on Budget Day, Ireland will make an initial contribution of €2 million to the Green Climate Fund in 2016. This contribution will be Ireland’s first contribution to that Fund and will be in addition to Ireland’s broader and on-going support for mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries. Despite difficult recent economic circumstances, Ireland has delivered approximately €34 million in grants annually through the Overseas Development Aid (ODA) programme. In 2013 and 2014, this amounted to €34.15m and €33.68m respectively. While this was mainly bilateral support to Ireland’s key partner countries in sub-Saharan Africa, it also included other multilateral climate-specific funds like the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF).
An inter-departmental technical working group is actively considering the options for scaling up mobilisation of climate finance in the period to 2020, including through the Green Climate Fund.