President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (E.O. 14008, signed January 27, 2021) called for the preparation of a Climate Finance Plan (herein “Plan”). This Plan – the first of its kind in the U.S. government – focuses on international climate finance. For the purposes of this Plan, “climate finance” refers in part to the provision or mobilization of financial resources to assist developing countries to reduce and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
For the purposes of this Plan, “climate finance” refers in part to the provision or mobilization of financial resources to assist developing countries to reduce and/or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Plan also addresses the need to better align public and private financial flows consistent with what is needed to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature and resilient-development goals.
Climate finance can help unlock deep reductions in other countries’ emissions by supporting the deployment of existing clean energy technologies broad, protecting forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems that capture and store carbon, and fostering new technologies to accelerate the transition to a net-zero emissions global economy while building resilience and helping countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.
This Plan has several goals. First, it provides the U.S. government with a strategic vision of international climate finance with a 2025 horizon. Second, it outlines key steps and instruments through which the U.S. government will mobilize climate finance in a strategic and concerted way to most efficiently tackle the challenge. Third, it outlines how the U.S. government will support climate-aligned finance flows more broadly. And fourth, the Plan serves as a signal to other governments, international institutions, and stakeholders that the United States intends to work closely with them to deploy climate finance more efficiently and with highest impact.
The Plan covers five areas: (1) scaling up climate finance and enhancing its impact; (2) mobilizing private sector finance; (3) taking steps to end international official financing for carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy; (4) making capital flows consistent with low-emissions, climate-resilient pathways; and (5) defining, measuring, and reporting U.S. public climate finance.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: U.S. International Climate Finance Plan
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/executive-summary-u-s-international-climate-finance-plan/
U.S. INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE FINANCE PLAN (13 pages)
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/U.S.-International-Climate-Finance-Plan-4.22.21-Updated-Spacing.pdf
