{"id":46213,"date":"2022-04-01T16:48:24","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T15:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=46213"},"modified":"2022-04-01T16:48:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T15:48:24","slug":"south-african-bank-held-to-net-zero-standard-for-gcf-accreditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2022\/04\/01\/south-african-bank-held-to-net-zero-standard-for-gcf-accreditation\/","title":{"rendered":"South African bank held to net zero standard for GCF accreditation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Developing country representatives on the Green Climate Fund (GCF) board have accused rich countries of setting an unfair precedent, by imposing a net zero condition to access\u00a0climate finance.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>An application from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) to partner with the GCF was only accepted after the bank set a target to reach net zero emissions in its lending portfolio by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>Representatives of rich countries had <a href=\"https:\/\/climatechangenews.com\/2021\/10\/08\/dispute-grips-green-climate-fund-net-zero-condition-accessing-finance\/\">refused to accredit<\/a> the bank in October, meaning it could not apply for project funding from the GCF, the UN&#8217;s flagship fund. One month later, at Cop26, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dbsa.org\/press-releases\/dbsa-statement-net-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DBSA committed<\/a> to net zero by 2050 and at this week&#8217;s board meeting its application was unanimously approved.<\/p>\n<p>France&#8217;s board member Stephane Cieniewski said the net zero commitment &#8220;was instrumental in securing the re-accreditation&#8221; while Sweden&#8217;s Lars Roth noted the pledge &#8220;with satisfaction&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Spain&#8217;s Marta Mucas Alcantara also welcomed DBSA&#8217;s pledge and Switzerland&#8217;s Stefan Denzler said this commitment &#8220;could motivate others to follow&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/climatechangenews.com\/2022\/03\/29\/after-us-fails-to-pay-its-debt-uns-flagship-climate-fund-warns-of-austerity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>After US fails<\/strong> to pay its debt, UN\u2019s flagship climate fund warns of austerity<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But developing country representatives said it was unfair to hold institutions in rich and poor countries to the same standards.<\/p>\n<p>Egypt&#8217;s Wael Aboulmagd said: &#8220;I was hoping we wouldn&#8217;t have this conversation. We had this discussion before&#8230; I&#8217;m worried that we&#8217;re legislating on the fly, on the go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is not official GCF policy to make accreditation conditional on a net zero target. &#8220;I worry that we are applying a precedent,&#8221; said Aboulmagd. &#8220;I hear the talk about net zero. That&#8217;s good. Let&#8217;s put it in the policies. But until then, we cannot create new conditions and impose them on entities on grounds that are not in the policies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan&#8217;s Nauman Bashir Bhatti agreed, adding: &#8220;I&#8217;m not sure that we have an agreed context of net zero here on this board.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>South African official Zaheer Fakir tweeted that developed countries had &#8220;abuse[d] their seats&#8230;to impose conditionalities on the reaccreditation of the DBSA that are not approved policies of the fund&#8221;. He accused them of &#8220;much grandstanding&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The GCF was set up at UN climate talks in 2010 as a financing vehicle for developing countries&#8217; climate action. It has since allocated more than $10bn to projects designed to cut emissions and support vulnerable communities cope with climate impacts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developing country board members objected that it was unfair to hold institutions in rich and poor countries to the same green standards","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":46217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"coauthors":[4545],"class_list":["post-46213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-climate-fund","type-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>South African bank held to net zero standard for GCF accreditation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Developing 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