Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the world's largest multilateral climate fund, established within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its purpose is to help developing countries finance both adaptation to the effects of climate change and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. As of December 2023, its portfolio stood at 13.5 billion US dollars, or 51.9 billion including co-financing.
The Green Climate Fund is based in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea. It is governed by a Board of 24 members and supported by a Secretariat.
The Green Climate Fund was formally established at the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-16) in Cancun, Mexico. Its governing instrument was adopted the following year at COP-17 in Durban, South Africa. The fund's concept first appeared in the Copenhagen Accord during COP-15 in 2009.
Mafalda Duarte, a Portuguese development economist, serves as the GCF's Executive Director. In 2023, she announced a series of reforms aimed at making the fund more efficient.
The United States pledged and signed 3 billion US dollars to the GCF. President Obama committed to this amount, and in January 2017, in his final three days in office, he initiated the transfer of a second installment of 500 million dollars, leaving 2 billion dollars outstanding. Former President Trump criticized the GCF on the 1st of June 2017 when announcing US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
The GCF has faced several controversies, including disagreements over the role of private sector finance, the definition of additionality of funds, and transparency of its board. At a board meeting in South Korea in March 2015, the fund refused an explicit ban on fossil fuel projects, with Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia opposing the ban. Former executive director Héla Cheikhrouhou stated in 2016 that the fund was backing too many business-as-usual investment proposals.