NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday he would work with Congress to double funds by 2024 for helping developing nations deal with climate change to $11.4 billion per year, which would help achieve a global goal set more than a decade ago to mobilize $100 billion per year to support climate action in vulnerable countries.
“In April, I announced the United States will double our public international financing to help developing nations tackling climate crisis. Today, I’m proud to announce that we’ll work with the Congress to double that number again, including for adaptation efforts, to make the United States the leader of public climate finance,” he told world leaders.
Biden’s announcement comes with less than six weeks to go before the UN climate summit begins in Glasgow, Scotland.
British summit host Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said meeting that climate finance target is key to building trust between developing and developed nations ahead of new negotiations since developed countries have failed to mobilize the $100 billion per year pledge by the original goal year of 2020.
A report released last week – ahead of the Biden announcement – by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that rich countries likely missed the goal to contribute $100 billion last year to helping developing nations deal with climate change after increasing funding by less than 2% in 2019.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein, Editing by Franklin Paul and Marguerita Choy)
