S.Korea to provide $2.72 mn to global climate fund

Seoul : South Korea will provide a total of 3.6 billion won ($2.72 million) to an international fund aimed at helping developing nations adapt to the harmful effects of climate change, the finance ministry said on Wednesday.

Seoul will contribute 1.2 billion won per annum to the Adaptation Fund over the next three years from 2023, Yonhap news agency reported, citing a statement by the ministry.

South Korea unveiled its contribution plan at the fund’s high-level contributor dialogue in Egypt on Tuesday, which took place on the margins of the 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties.

It marks South Korea’s first contribution to the fund set up in 2001 under the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The fund finances projects and programs in developing country communities that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Since 2010, it has committed $923.5 million to projects and programs to date, including 132 concrete projects.

South Korea has been joining international efforts to help cope with climate change. It is home to the Green Climate Fund, an international organisation on fighting climate change that was launched in 2010 in Songdo, west of Seoul.

In October, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo told a conference on sustainable dialogue in the pan-Pacific region that South Korea will increase its funding to help developing nations mitigate the impacts of climate change.