A Breakdown of Developed Countries’ Public Climate Finance Contributions Towards the $100 Billion Goal

Abstract

In 2009, as part of the Copenhagen Accord, developed countries committed to collectively mobilizing $100 billion annually in climate finance by 2020 to support developing countries in reducing emissions and adapting to climate change. This commitment is foundational to the “grand bargain” behind the Paris Agreement: that all countries would commit to more ambitious climate action but developing countries would require enhanced support from developed countries to do so. The $100 billion is a collective commitment by developed countries, and meeting it will require them all to do their part. Over the past decade, there have been several assessments of aggregate progress towards the goal, but until now, no data set has attempted to comprehensively break down each country’s full public financial contribution. This technical note aims to fill this gap, increasing transparency and accountability around progress towards the $100 billion commitment by breaking down how much each developed country has contributed in public climate finance between 2013 and 2018, the most recent year for which comprehensive data are available. The individual breakdowns are then used to assess how countries’ efforts compare using a variety of metrics. The methodology for breaking down and analyzing individual country contributions can be applied to future climate finance data. To improve accountability of countries’ contributions towards the $100 billion commitment, this technical note identified several methodological barriers that need to be addressed in future climate finance reporting efforts.

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