Joint press release of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Department of Energy and
On 6 December, during the climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) of the United Kingdom (UK) launched the "NAMA Facility" to support partner countries to implement ambitious action against climate change.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier and Edward Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the UK, explained the framework of the Facility, for which Germany and the UK will jointly provide about €70 million of funding. In this context, Dr Francisco Barnes, President of the Mexican National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC), furthermore presented the first project the Facility intends to fund. Minister Altmaier stated: "With the today’s launched NAMA Facility, we stress our commitment to seriously tackle global warming with innovative financing instruments. We will prove that close cooperation is key for the implementation of NAMAs".
Minister Davey stated: "Climate change is a global threat and with every passing year, the nature and the extent of that threat grows clearer. Climate finance is fundamental to building resilience and capacity for countries to mitigate and adapt to climate change. I’m delighted to announce today a joint partnership with the German Government to help support those developing countries that are taking ambitious action to close the gap to 2°C. This will enable us to work in partnership with developing countries to deliver more results in more places."
The NAMA Facility is designed to support developing countries that show strong leadership in tackling climate change and want to implement transformational Nationally Appropriate Mitigating Actions (NAMA). Transformational NAMAs are projects, policies, or programmes that shift a whole technology or sector in a country onto a low-carbon development trajectory. Developing countries are preparing NAMAs as part of their national strategies. However, it is difficult to access finance through existing commercial and public channels to finance implementation, particularly for the most innovative NAMAs. By applying a competitive selection process the Facility will improve the value for money and quality of NAMAs and enable their implementation. It is intended that the Facility will support investments across a range of countries and sectors with grant funding as well as loan finance.
The NAMA project in Mexico will demonstrate the type of work the Facility has been designed for. It will support the Mexican Government in implementing a NAMA programme for sustainable new housing by establishing the necessary framework conditions. The project will pave the way towards a broad implementation of sustainable housing, which focuses on the total energy performance of a building.
Germany’s funding of €40 million is coming from the Special Energy and Climate Fund. The UK Government is supporting the Facility with £25 million from the International Climate Fund (ICF).