PNG and Green Climate Fund

ENVIRONMENT

A COUNTRY programme for the application of Green Climate Fund in Papua New Guinea was documented in September 2020.
The 156-page document is titled “Papua New Guinea and the Green Climate Fund – Country Programme”.
You can imagine the amount of work and funds used to frame this document. The question to ask now is, how realistic, practical and how much has been done over the years after its documentation. It seems that it is an over-ambitious document where implementers are stepping on each other’s toes trying to do the same thing resulting in little progress made.
The country programme was developed in readiness and a supporting document for Green Climate Fund application in Papua New Guinea. It involved a good number of national stakeholders in its consultation and documentation process. The progamme is a strategic framework for progressing and advancing actions required in addressing climate change issues in the country.
Papua New Guinea has its own share of climatic disasters and needs to take stock of its weaknesses and strengths and prioritise actions necessary in institutional developments and focused legislative frameworks and reform required to mobilise international climatic funds such as the Green Climate Funds.

Alignment with development priorities
The programme was to have been PNG driven in engaging Green Climate Fund that is aligned with PNG national planning frameworks and development priorities such as the Medium Term Development Plan lll 2018-2022. The programme is also to be seen as a guiding tool for domestic, regional and international partners to prepare proposals that are aligned and harmonised with PNG national priories and commitments.
The programme requires genuine and committed partnerships with all players, the Green Climate Fund, PNG country stakeholders, accredited entities, Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA) acting as the Green Climate Fun’ds National Designated Authority and national government stakeholders will provide the oversight for the implementation of the country programme. It is a generic document and is to be revised and amended to suite the changing development priorities.

Green Climate Fund (GCF)
GCF is by far the world’s largest funding framework to assist developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and enhance their ability to respond to climate change. It was set up by the member countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in its Conference of the Parties in 2010 in Paris, France.
It is an outcome of the Paris Agreement with a crucial role in supporting the goal of keeping global temperatures rise below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, hoping that this would sustainably reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.
The country progamme in PNG was to have been developed as a GCF readiness and preparatory support programme with an intention to engage and allow coordination of stakeholders, including various ministries, sub-national institutions, civil societies, and private sectors in designing and prioritising of GCF activities. The country programme should have prioritized programme areas, including priority on mitigation/adaptation investments, readiness of actions, and a timeline for implementation.
The programme sets out country priorities in relation to GCF, as well as the current pipeline of investment and readiness projects. These priorities have been selected based on an alignment to GCF result areas and investment criteria.
The country programme was developed by synthesizing national climate change and development strategies and action plans, and by conducting intensive stakeholder engagements at the national and provincial level. The programme is in alignment with the priorities, goals and targets outlined in the National Climate Compatible Development Management Policy (NCCDMP)(2014), Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) (2015) Medium Term Development Plan lll (2018 -2022) and Vision 2050.
The country programme is to allow priority projects and programs that can support PNGs transition to a low-carbon climate-resilient developing pathway. The programme includes a list of projects and programmes to be developed over years 2020 to 2027. These projects includes proposals with a focus on renewable energy supply, access to energy efficiency, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, climate resilient infrastructure development, reduction of climate change risks, development of climate-resilient agriculture, and building coastal resilient.
The programme is a working document that will be reviewed periodically and updated to capture new developments, changing national circumstances, and lesions learnt from implementation. The programme is to be reviewed annually to assess factors such as relevance, effectiveness and impact. A comprehensive and systematic review should take place five-yearly to develop a new country progamme for the next five-year period.

Country programme
The document is a highly charged policy document that discusses policies, stakeholders and institutional frameworks, responsibilities and overall development strategies for Papua New Guinea. Not enough priorities have been set for actions to be taken to transform those policy undertakings to field implementation. Green Climate Fund (GCF) application seems to be of less value to Carbon Trade Projects, especially Voluntary Carbon Trade Projects in Papua New Guinea. It is also of seemingly truth that other climate changes funds made available through other sources are of the same nature.

GCF mandate
GCF is the world’s largest climate fund that was the outcome of the Paris Agreement. It is mandated to support developing countries (PNG included) raise and realize their National Determination Contributions (NDC) ambitions towards low-emissions, climate resilient pathways.
The main focus priorities of GCF are;
a) Low emission transport;
b) Low emission energy access and power generation;
c) Energy efficient buildings, cities and industries;
d) Sustainable land use and forest management; and
e) Enhanced livelihoods of the most vulnerable people, communities and regions

It would be interesting to know how much the Government of Papa New Guinea has invested in these areas using the funds made available through GCF and assess these successes archived in utilising this fund.
GCF is an enabling mechanism for collective human action to respond to climate change. The fund aims to mobilise funding at a scale to invest in low-emissions and climate-resilient development in PNG.
Sounds encouraging, however, it would be interesting to assess its effectiveness by the Government in making funds available across all sectors of the communities, especially landowners who own all forested land who are struggling to participate in climate change projects in forestry and land use sectors especially carbon trade projects at the Voluntary Carbon Trade Market.
Corporate private companies are utilising their own funds in most cases or if not in all cases to participate in these emission reduction projects. What is the situation with those marginalised small communities of landowners who are willing and volunteering to put themselves on the line to save this planet?
GCF is the largest climate fund; it accelerates transformative climate action in developing countries through a country-owned partnership approach and use. This is an over statement of the real situation in Papua New Guinea. Little implementation efforts take place as more work is focused on developing policies, partnership frameworks, hiring of consultants to re-write policies, holding of workshops and participating at the national, regional and international meetings.

REDD + Programme
GCF focal programme area is also on Development of REDD+ programme and benefit sharing to enhance the resilience and livelihood of communities through social forestry and conservation. Most land and forests are owned by the landowners in Papua New Guinea. In all the cases these groups of landowners lack finance to develop carbon reduction projects especially in participating at the Voluntary Carbon Market.
The use of result based finance from GCF is therefore a critical component of REDD+ emission reduction initiatives. This project will focus on the development of equitable and transparent benefit sharing arrangements to define how monetary and/or non-monetary benefits are shared among stakeholders in PNG. Benefits could include community training and provision of social forestry and conservation inputs (such as equipment, seedlings, and facilities for processing products), and also benefits for community development (such as schools and health facilities).
The provision of these benefits will have the potential to generate further emissions reductions and result-based finance for communities. This project is aligned to the MTDP III (2018-2022), which aims to promote sustainable forestry, and the NDC (2015), which states that “PNG can contribute to addressing the global mitigation gap by reducing deforestation and promoting forest conservation and sustainable management of its forests”. The objectives of this project will be achieved through the following outputs: • Comprehensive consultations with stakeholders to design and develop benefit-sharing arrangements. • Identification of land for conservation in PNG. • Design and implementation of social forestry and conservation initiatives.
Very little progress is being made in this area. Landowners who have so much desire to participate in this society projects, particularly Carbon Trade Projects on Voluntary Markets find it so difficult to secure finances or funding from these financial institutions. The likes of GCF and so many other funds made available under the banner of climate change is non-existent to them.

Climate change and employment
The Government in its efforts to deal with climate change issues has already embracing its development goals and aspiration. The REDD+ and Agriculture sectors will provide a lot more employment opportunities. This is where the Government should invest some of this money from GCF. This is where the donor agencies and foreign missions should assist as these are tangle projects. The carbon trade and agriculture projects have greater advantages especially in creating job opportunities and reducing unemployment.
The most effective is the Carbon Trade Project and sustainable agriculture opportunities as a form of employment to engage part of this workforce. PNG has abundance of natural resources which are largely or wholly owned by the people, the landowners. The landowners can be engaged in carbon trade projects as they have natural forests, forest plantations, and coral reefs, other marine resources, biodiversity and energy development opportunities.
The Government should invest, support and create carbon trade opportunities, especially Voluntary Carbon Trade Projects and thereby creating jobs and investing their widely publicised GCF and other climate change funds available.
Government ministers, bureaucrats and foreign missions preach about climate change funds after returning to PNG from participating in international climate change meetings or other international meetings. But the problem with the Government is how to bring these funds onshore (PNG) and how to strategise using these funds.
We need to have right attitudes and intentions to utilize natural resources and activities for carbon trade on policies, regulations so that economic goals can be archived in forestry, agriculture, fisheries energy, land, environment and eco-tourism sectors. These will create job opportunities for our young people who are roaming around aimlessly on the streets of Port Moresby and other urban centres.
Although there is a programme focus on such projects, carbon trade projects are not encouraging at all because the Government of Papua New Guinea and its bureaucrats intentions for trading carbon credits are not right. Government institutions have wrong intentions and that is why civil societies, NGOs and donor partners are keeping a tag on how carbon trade is to be implemented, consequently delaying progress.
The Government needs to be more coordinated and strategic to effectively access these global funds and support. Mainstream government agencies such as CCDA, National Planning and Monitoring Department must work with other governments departments such as International Trade and Investment, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to ensure these funds/grants are utilised to the fullest.