Senator Presses Geithner on Plan to Raise $100B for Global Green Fund

Ahead of the next big international climate meeting, U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) has asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner how the administration proposes the raise contributions to a $100 billion climate fund to which the U.S. signed up three years ago. In a letter to Geithner Tuesday Vitter, the incoming ranking member on the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, said he was “interested to ascertain how Treasury plans on finding the lion’s share of an additional $100 billion, to give away to foreign nations while we continue to run deficits in excess of $1 trillion.” At a climate conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, the U.S. and other developed nations agreed to put together a global fund to help developing countries curb greenhouse gas emissions and cope with phenomena blamed on climate change, such as droughts and rising sea levels. Subsequently established in 2011, the “Green Climate Fund” (GCF) is meant to raise $100 billion a year from public and private sources by 2020. At the climate conference beginning next Monday in Doha, Qatar, developing nation representatives and environmental advocates are hoping for progress in discussions on how the money will actually be raised. In his letter to Geithner Vitter raised concerns that the U.S. would be expected to raise the “lion’s share” of the GCF funding...more