Public climate finance to developing countries is rising

December 3, 2018 by OECD Leave a Comment

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe Masses of ice on Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon in south-east Iceland in June 2013.

This article is brought to you in association with OECD.

Public climate finance from developed to developing countries totalled USD 56.7 billion in 2017, up 17% from USD 48.5 billion in 2016, according to new data compiled by the OECD.

A new data series for 2013-2017 shows that public climate finance has risen by 44% from USD 39.5 billion in 2013. The year-on-year rise has been steady aside from a small dip in 2015.

The data includes bilateral public climate-related aid from developed countries, multilateral climate finance attributable to developed countries, and officially supported climate-related export credits from developed countries. Updated estimates of mobilised private climate finance flows are due to be provided in 2019. Previously estimated mobilised private climate finance for 2013-14 are provided in the report for completeness.

The 2017 figure is consistent with a linear pathway to the level of public climate finance from developed countries that the OECD projected in a previous report in 2016 would be reached in 2020, i.e. USD 66.8 billion in 2020, excluding export credits.

Public climate finance from developed to developing countries is rising

The data series shows that bilateral public climate finance increased by 20% from 2013 to 2017 to reach USD 27 billion. Multilateral climate finance attributable to developed countries rose by 79% to USD 27.5 billion, and climate-related export credits increased by 31% to USD 2.1 billion.

Within that, finance for adaptation to climate change rose by 65% from USD 7.8 billion in 2013 to USD 12.9 billion in 2017. Finance for climate change mitigation rose by 38% from USD 28.2 billion to USD 38.9 billion, and finance for cross-cutting activities rose 37% from USD 3.5 billion to USD 4.8 billion.

The relative mix of grants to loans (concessional and non-concessional) was relatively stable over the five-year period. Grants represented over a third of bilateral and less than 10% of multilateral climate finance, while loans accounted for about 60% of bilateral and nearly 90% of multilateral finance. Grant financing rose by 25% from USD 10.3 billion in 2013 to USD 12.8 billion in 2017, while the volume of loans doubled to USD 40.3 billion in 2017 from USD 20.0 billion in 2013. The majority of bilateral loans were concessional; most multilateral loans were non-concessional.

All regions received increasing amounts of public climate finance over the period. Asia, followed by Africa and Latin America, received the largest share of bilateral and multilateral climate finance over the period at more than 80% in any given year.

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