Campaigners are dissatisfied with the Songdo talks’ outcome, as the Green Climate Fund didn’t put any ban on coal finance. The ninth Green Climate Fund meeting in Songdo (South Korea) ended on Thursday, March 26 with an agreement on seven intermediaries to pay out funds to tackle climate change and support low carbon activities in developing countries, and the first projects are expected to be funded within the next months, before the Paris climate summit starts this December. However, the effectiveness of the fund’s activity is yet to be determined, as the 30 April deadline is getting closer and at the moment only 1% of donor governments have given their contribution, making it hard to imagine that all the pledged US$10.2 billion will actually be donated in time. Also, environmentalists are disappointed with the absence of progress made with the definition of clear criteria to determine how the money will be spent; in fact, the Green Climate Fund board didn’t endorse any rule that guarantees that coal power will be excluded from the funding, and this raises actual concerns, as it’s been revealed that Japan is using “climate finance” to support coal plants in India, Bangladesh and Indonesia. The fund agreed to set a minimum standard the greenhouse gas emissions cut projects must reach, but not until 2016, while during this time an “assessment scale”, which is due to be approved in October, will be applied to the first projects. The gLAWcal Team POREEN project Tuesday, 31 March 2015 (Source: RTCC)