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The broken $100-billion promise of climate finance — and how to fix it

At Glasgow’s COP26 summit, countries will argue for more money to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.
  1. Jocelyn Timperley

    1. Jocelyn Timperley is a freelance climate journalist in San José, Costa Rica.

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A woman walks to her eroded shelter home near Meghna river in Bangladesh.

A damaged temporary home near the Meghna River in Bangladesh, in a coastal area threatened by erosion and rising saltwater levels in soil. Credit: Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/Barcroft Media/Getty

Twelve years ago, at a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, rich nations made a significant pledge. They promised to channel US$100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further rises in temperature.

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Nature 598, 400-402 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02846-3

References

  1. Independent Expert Group on Climate Finance. Delivering on the $100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment and Transforming Climate Finance (Independent Expert Group on Climate Finance, 2020).

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  2. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Climate Finance Provided and Mobilised by Developed Countries: Aggregate Trends Updated with 2019 Data (OECD, 2021).

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  3. Multilateral Development Banks. 2020 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance (Multilateral Development Banks, 2020).

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  4. Carty, T., Kowalzig J. & Zagema, B. Climate Finance Shadow Report 2020 (Oxfam, 2020).

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  5. Bos, J. & Thwaites, J. A Breakdown of Developed Countries’ Public Climate Finance Contributions Towards the $100 Billion Goal (World Resources Institute, 2021).

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  6. United Nations Environment Programme. Adaptation Gap Report 2020 (UNEP, 2020).

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  7. Naran, B. et al. Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2021 (Climate Policy Initiative, 2021).

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