U.N. chief calls for more climate finance for poor nations as 2020 goal slips

U.N. chief calls for more climate finance for poor nations as 2020 goal slips

The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has said rich nations aren't upholding their promise to provide $100 billion a year to support poorer nations adapt to climate change.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley said the COVID-19 crisis was consuming resources that had been intended for emissions reduction projects.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Climate Ambition Summit her government would initiate an international process to raise more climate finance for the post-2020 period.



Rich nations are "lagging badly“ on a longstanding pledge to channel $100 billion a year in funding, from 2020 onwards, to help poorer countries develop cleanly and adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change, the U.N. chief said.

Antonio Guterres told journalists, on the sidelines of a virtual "Climate Ambition Summit“ to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, that a new report by climate finance experts estimated the promise would not be met this year.

Nor had donors responded adequately to the COVID-19 financial crisis to provide cash-strapped developing countries with liquidity and debt relief, he noted.



"There is a clear need to increase both forms of finance - and they should be inter-linked,“ he said, calling for the pandemic recovery to be