Rich nations still failing to honor $100B climate funding pledge: OECD

Rich countries are still failing to fulfill their pledge to provide $100 billion for climate action in poorer nations, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said on Friday.

In 2020, $83.3 billion were given to developing countries, $16.7 billion short of the target set at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference.

The figure, however, marked a 4% increase from 2019, primarily driven by a rise in public flows, according to the OECD.

Receiving 42% of the total on average, developing countries in Asia have been the main beneficiaries of climate finance between 2016 and 2020, followed by Africa (26%) and the Americas (17%).

“We know that more needs to be done. Climate finance grew between 2019 and 2020, but as we had expected, remained short of the increase needed to reach the $100 billion goal by 2020,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said in a statement.

He warned that climate change continues to cause “widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people.”

“Developed countries need to continue to ramp up their efforts in line with their stated commitments in the lead-up to COP26, which would mean the $100 billion goal would be reached from next year,” he said.

“This is critical to building trust as we continue to deepen our multilateral response to climate change.”

Previous projections by the OECD showed that “if all commitments put forward by bilateral and multilateral providers up to that point are delivered, the $100 billion level would be met in 2023 and be exceeded in the period to 2025,” the statement said.