The Australian federal government has pledged to provide a further A$500mn ($376mn) in international climate financing over the next five years to a total of A$2bn to support Pacific island countries and southeast Asia to tackle the impact of climate change.
The financing pledge was announced by Australian prime minister Scott Morrison at the UN Cop 26 climate conference in the UK's Glasgow, along with the unveiling of Australia's Indo-Pacific carbon offsets scheme. Morrison said Fiji is the first international partner in the offsets scheme.
Australia is investing an additional A$44mn in the scheme on top of the A$59.9mn originally invested, which results in A$104mn over a 10-year period. Mobilising international finance towards initiatives to tackle climate change is one of the main goals of the Cop 26 conference.
Australia's A$2bn climate funding will not go through the UN's Green Climate Fund set up as part of the Paris climate agreement in 2015. "We're not putting this through other worldwide institutions or other groups like this," Morrison said. "We're doing this direct, because we want to make sure that the climate finance investments that Australians are making are being invested in our backyard amongst our Pacific Island family and amongst our southeast Asian partners and friends."
Morrison gave no details about how the financing will be administered, and what transparency measures will be imposed to ensure the funds are spent on meaningful projects.
Australia last month said it planned to achieve its 2050 net-zero emissions target by abating 10-20pc of its emissions using domestic and international carbon offsets.
