"I am very happy to announce that we have closed this conference with an envelope of $9.8 billion," Odile Renaud-Basso, director of the French Treasury, told journalists after the latest financing round for the Green Climate Fund in Paris. It exceeded the $9.3 billion pledged at the previous conference in 2014, of which only $7.2 billion has come through so far. The United States had pledged $3 billion but Trump's decision to quit the 2015 Paris accord meant just $1 billion was actually paid. Opening the conference, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the new pledges were "ambitious, despite the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement." Japan, which again pledged $1.5 billion, remains the largest single contributor with a total of $3 billion since the fund's creation in 2010.

Source: The Local October 26, 2019 06:56 UTC