Highlights

• There is an urgent need to ensure that the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has both the financial resources and the effective governance to achieve its mandate: to support developing countries in reducing their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change.
• There are currently no criteria on how much the first replenishment of the GCF should aim to raise and how the financial effort among contributors should be shared.
• This working paper argues that a more objective and transparent framework for determining contributions to the GCF is needed to strengthen the predictability of GCF resources, one that uses as a reference point a formula-based scaled indicative minimum threshold. This formula could be based, for illustrative purposes, on gross national income (GNI), cumulative GHG emissions, and GHG emissions per capita.
• There is a need to strengthen the board’s effectiveness in making decisions, allowing dissenting opinions without holding up critical decisions, and agreeing to a decision-making procedure if efforts to reach consensus have been exhausted. An independent review of the board’s performance, as well as a self-assessment by the board, can also help improve its governance.