The Green Climate Fund has signed a joint declaration with the International Solar Alliance to strengthen collaboration for renewable energy, and to promote solar energy solutions as part of the steps needed to reach the ambition of the Paris Agreement.

The declaration was signed ahead of the Founding Ceremony of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), held in New Delhi on 11 March 2018. The declaration was signed by Kilaparti Ramakrishna, Head of Strategic Planning and Director of External Affairs a.i., for GCF, and by Upendra Tripathy, Interim Director General ISA, in the presence of Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, and R K Singh, Minister of State Power and New and Renewable Energy, Government of India.

Speaking at the Founding Ceremony of the ISA, GCF Executive Director Howard Bamsey stated: "Renewable energy is a key part of the Green Climate Fund's portfolio, with many of our projects focusing on overcoming barriers to the widespread deployment of solar generation. This partnership with ISA can help us to bring together technical expertise, financial leverage and political will in order to catalyze the transformation of global energy systems."

The International Solar Alliance joins countries located between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn to address common challenges to the scaling up of solar energy.

Renewable energy projects and programmes constitute the largest part of GCF's portfolio. Since 2016, the GCF Board has approved 13 renewable energy projects in 45 countries where GCF is committing USD 1.3 billion to realize USD 5.5 billion investment.

Although the costs of solar technology are falling, there are still huge barriers to overcome before our energy systems can be transformed. One of these is access to adequate finance, and GCF can play a role in proving new financial models so that private finance can be unlocked to drive the energy transition.

One example of GCF's contribution is the recent approval of a project from India's National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for USD 100 million to finance a roof-top solar programme in India.