The US may have pulled out of the Paris climate agreement last year, but the rest of the member nations are moving forward with plans to protect the environment.
The United Nations-backed Green Climate Fund has pledged $1 billion toward new projects and programs devoted to climate change for developing countries, and it's planning to raise funds to fill the financial gap left when President Trump denied an additional $2 billion committed during the Obama administration, reports Fortune.
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"We are in a much better place going into these crunch climate talks in December," Joe Thwaites, an associate in the World Resources Institute's Sustainable Finance Center, told the CBC. "Continued GCF support for developing countries is a key component of success in the international negotiations."
The pledge comes just after the release of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report, outlining significant changes the world must undergo before 2030 to halt global warming and prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists have previously pointed out that the world has already warmed by around 1 degree Celsius in the last century, fueling sea level rises, heat waves, storms, and the decline of coral reefs, noted the Guardian. Meanwhile, the adoption of new technologies and practices has not increased to meet the challenge.
"The penetration rate of new technology historically takes a long time," said Drew Shindell, a Duke University climate scientist and a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, in an interview with the Guardian. "It's not simple to change these things. There aren't good examples in history of such rapid, far-reaching transitions."
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The ominous report has spurred many countries to take renewed interest in climate change.
Of the 19 new projects approved over a four-day Green Climate Fund meeting in Bahrain, efforts include investing in renewable energy in Tonga, transforming financial systems in Africa and South America, and enhancing climate resilience in India's coastal communities, noted Fortune.
Others address water resources, food security, and electricity grids.