Marcel W. Heijman

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the world's largest climate fund dedicated to helping developing countries take climate action. GCF helps developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. It seeks to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development, taking into account the needs of nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. It was set up by the 194 countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, as part of the Convention’s financial mechanism. It aims to deliver equal amounts of funding to mitigation and adaptation, while being guided by UNFCCC's principles and provisions. When the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, GCF was given an important role in serving the agreement and supporting the goal of keeping global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. Responding to the climate challenge requires collective action from all countries, including by both public and private sectors. Among these concerted efforts, advanced economies have agreed to jointly mobilize significant financial resources. Coming from a variety of sources, these resources address the pressing mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.