H.E. Ms. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation the COP 17 President, has announced the appointment of Mr. Zaheer Fakir (South Africa) and Mr. Georg Børsting (Norway) as co-Chairs of the work programme on long-term finance.

At COP17 in Durban at the end of 2011, governments, in decision 2/CP.17, para. 127, decided to undertake a work programme on long-term finance in order to progress on the issue and to contribute to the on-going efforts to scale up the mobilization of climate change finance after 2012. The work programme will analyze options for the mobilization of resources from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources and relevant analytical work on climate-related financing needs of developing countries.

The co-Chairs are familiar with the issue of long-term finance, as they have been actively involved in climate finance issues within and outside the Convention. Both served as advisors to the co-Chairs of the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund.

Mr. Fakir is a senior official of the Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa. He is an active member of the Adaptation Fund Board and, until recently, was a member of the Council of the Global Environment Facility. In addition, he successfully facilitated the negotiations in Durban that led to the launching of the Green Climate Fund.

 Mr. Børsting is the Policy Director for Climate Change of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Norway. Mr. Børsting has facilitated various negotiations under the Climate Convention and has had chair positions in the Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee and the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism. He led the negotiations at COP17 that led to adoption of the decisions on Standing Committee and long-term finance work programme.

Mr. Fakir and Mr. Børsting will commence the coordination and steering of the long-term finance work programme, supported by the UNFCCC secretariat, at the upcoming session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies in Bonn in May.

During the upcoming session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies in Bonn (14 - 25 May), the co-Chairs will actively consult with Parties and key stakeholders in order to identify priority areas of the work programme and to crystallize the work plan.

Long term finance

The Conference of the Parties (COP), at its seventeenth session, decided in decision 2/CP.17, paragraph 127, to undertake a work programme on long-term finance in 2012, including workshops, to progress on long-term finance in the context of decision 1/CP.16, paragraphs 97-101.

Aim of this work programme is to contribute to the on-going efforts to scale up the mobilization of climate change finance after 2012. The work programme will analyze options for the mobilization of resources from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources and relevant analytical work on climate-related financing needs of developing countries. The analysis will draw upon relevant reports including that of the High-level Advisory Group on Climate Financing (AGF) and the report on mobilizing climate finance for the G20 and the assessment criteria in the reports, and will also take into account lessons learned from fast-start finance.

The President of the COP was invited to appoint two co-chairs, one from a developing country Party and one from a developed country Party for the work programme.

These co-chairs, supported by the secretariat of the UNFCCC, were invited to prepare a report on the workshops for consideration by COP 18.

Updated 16 April 2012