NEW DELHI:
Developed countries
provided and mobilised $115.9 billion in
climate finance
for developing countries in
2022
, exceeding the annual $100 billion goal for the first time, said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (
OECD
) while releasing new figures on contribution.
It, however, happened two years after the initial target date of 2020.
This commitment, first made in 2009 in Copenhagen, was reaffirmed in 2015 as part of the
Paris Agreement
to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The $100 billion goal is meant to be replaced with a new global climate finance goal at the 29th session of the UN climate summit (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan in November.
According to the latest figures, the climate finance in 2022 was up by 30% from 2021, or by $26.3 billion. “This is the biggest year-on-year increase to date and means that the $100 billion was reached a year earlier than the OECD had previously projected, albeit two years later than the initial target date of 2020,” said the organisation.
“Exceeding this annual commitment materially by more than 15% is an important and symbolic achievement which goes some way towards making up for the two year delay, which should help build trust. We encourage developed countries to keep up the momentum, also to leverage it further with additional policy efforts to boost private climate finance,” said OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann.
The 2022 climate finance data shows that public funds, from both bilateral and multilateral channels, continue to make up the bulk of climate finance, accounting for 80% of the total.
Delhi-based climate change activist, Harjeet Singh, however, dismissed the process of calculating the climate finance saying it is riddled with ambiguity and inadequacies. “Much of the funding is repackaged as loans rather than grants and is often intertwined with existing aid, blurring the lines of true financial assistance,” he said.
Singh, who actively participated in advocacy for loss and damage funds, said, “This is not the time for creative accounting or fiscal loopholes. Rich countries urgently need to step up, clear these smokescreens, and deliver real, substantial financial support. The clock is ticking, and our actions now will determine the fate of countless lives and ecosystems that depend on this support.”
According to the OECD, multilateral public climate finance showed the biggest rise, up by $35 billion or 226% since 2013. The 2022 growth in public climate finance was accompanied by a jump of 52%, or $7.5 billion, in mobilised private finance, which reached $21.9 billion in 2022 after several years of relative stagnation.
The figures also show an uptick in climate finance destined for adaptation action. Following a small drop in 2021, adaptation finance reached $32.4 billion in 2022, three times the 2016 level. The amount of public adaptation finance tracked by the OECD in 2019 was $18.8 billion and $20.3 billion with mobilised private finance included.
“Based on these figures, in 2022, developed countries were about halfway towards meeting the 2019 COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact’s call to double the provision of adaptation finance by 2025,” said the OECD – a global policy forum.
