Industrialized countries meet $100B climate finance pledge, two years late
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The world's industrialized countries made good on their pledge to provide at least $100 billion a year in climate assistance to poorer nations in 2022, two years after the original deadline, according to a new analysis.
Why it matters: The delay in fulfilling the pledge, which was made at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009, generated resentment and doubts among developing nations regarding future climate funding promises.
Zoom in: According to a new OECD report, developed countries provided $115.9 billion in climate finance for developing nations in 2022, exceeding the $100 billion annual goal for the first time.
- This was a 30% jump in climate finance from 2021, the report found, which was the biggest year-on-year increase.
- Hitting the $100 billion goal comes just as countries work to come up with a new climate finance target, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal, to be decided at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November.
Yes, but: $100 billion a year was always a paltry sum compared with what is needed to meet the Paris targets.
- Many billions more are required for the world to improve its chances of slashing emissions deeply enough to avoid potentially devastating climate change and to help developing countries withstand the impacts of extreme weather events worsened by warming.
Between the lines: Most of 2022's financial commitments came from public funds, the OECD report shows, along with $21.9 billion in private sector financing in 2022.
- Grants have become more prominent over time compared with loans from multilateral development banks, and this balance will be a key topic at COP29 and other future negotiations.
- Developing countries don't want to go deeper in debt to combat climate change or boost their climate resilience, particularly when the industrialized world emitted the greenhouse gases that caused the problem in the first place.
What they're saying: "It is always essential to fulfill past promises, but even more so this year as the Presidency is bringing the parties together to agree [to] a fair and ambitious new climate finance goal," said COP29 president-designate Mukhtar Babayev in a statement.
