Money comes days before Obama hands over to Trump, who has urged halting U.S. funds for U.N. global warming programmes
(Adds details on climate fund, quotes from state department and )
By Yeganeh Torbati
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - The United States has made a $500 million payment to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund, meant to help developing countries combat climate change, the State Department said on Tuesday.
The U.S. funding for the GCF comes days before U.S. President Barack Obama hands over power to Donald Trump, who has called man-made climate change a hoax and called for halting U.S. taxpayer funds for U.N. global warming programs. Trump's inauguration is set to take place on Friday.
The United States in 2014 pledged $3 billion for the GCF, to be used by poor and climate-vulnerable countries for transformational projects to adopt cleaner energy technologies and build their resistance against the impact of climate change.
The $500 million grant announced on Tuesday is the second such payment the United States has made, for a total of $1 billion so far. Rich nations promised the GCF $10 billion in a first round of funding in 2014.
There was no "nefarious desire or intent" behind the timing of the U.S. move, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a briefing on Tuesday.
"It's not being done to try to provoke a reaction from the incoming administration or to try to dictate to them one way or the other how they are going to deal with climate issues," Kirby said. "This is an investment that had been long planned."
The first U.S. grant to the fund was announced in March 2016.
The funding disclosed on Tuesday came from the fiscal year 2016 Economic Support Fund appropriation, as was the case with the initial grant, the State Department said.
The funds are under the control of the GCF and its board, which includes the United States, will decide how to use them, Kirby said.
Trump could decide to withhold the rest of the $3 billion in pledged U.S. funds.
Democratic U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy in a statement welcomed the payment, saying it would give the U.S. a "seat at the table" in future climate talks, echoing rhetoric by Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, in his confirmation hearing last week.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Republican U.S. Senators have opposed funding to the GCF, arguing that Congress never authorized it and calling it a waste of U.S. resources.
Oxfam America welcomed the move, saying it amounted to a miniscule portion of the U.S. federal budget compared with U.S. subsidies to produce fossil fuels.
(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Alan Crosby and Andrew Hay)
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