4 December 2013: The Green Climate Fund (GCF) headquarters were officially opened for business in Songdo, Incheon City, the Republic of Korea. The Fund had been temporarily hosted in Bonn, Germany.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was jointly hosted by Oh‐Seok Hyun, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance, Republic of Korea, and Héla Cheikhrouhou, Executive Director of the GCF Secretariat, and was attended by high-level officials, including Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary.

In her statement, Figueres said the GCF provides governments with a “crucial tool” to “leverage billions in finance for developing counties to green their economies and increase their resilience to the inevitable effects of climate change.” She further urged governments to capitalize the Fund as soon as final modalities are clarified in 2014. [GCF Press Release] [UNFCCC Executive Secretary’s Statement] [World Bank President’s Statement]