By Vanora Bennett
Highlights
- Worldwide 2021 figures surpass 2025 climate finance goals, with global mitigation finance of nearly US $63 billion
- Global adaptation finance reaches over US$ 19 billion
- The amount of mobilised global private finance stands at US$ 41 billion
Climate finance committed by major multilateral development banks (MDBs) rose by more than 24 per cent last year compared to 2020, according to the 2021 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks' Climate Finance, published today.
The 2021 total financing by multilateral development banks already surpassed the 2025 climate finance goals outlined at the 2019 UN Secretary General's Climate Action Summit in New York. Those goals amounted to an expected collective total of US$ 50 billion for low- and middle-income economies, and at least US$ 65 billion of climate finance globally, with a projected doubling of adaptation finance to US$ 18 billion, and private mobilisation of US$ 40 billion.
The EBRD's contribution to the 2021 figures included total climate finance of US$ 6.4 billion, a record high since joint MDB tracking began 11 years ago, with total climate co-finance at US$ 17.8 billion of which US$ 14 billion came from private sector sources.
"It is good news ahead of COP27 to see that EBRD climate finance has hit a new record total of US$ 6.4 billion, as part of a collective joint MDB climate finance delivery that is also a new record at US$ 82 billion. We are especially pleased to see that every dollar of finance we provided leveraged more than another two dollars of private climate mobilisation. We know we have to do more but the MDBs are determined to play a crucial role in the green transition that the world urgently needs, both with our own capital and by mobilising the resources of the private sector," said EBRD Managing Director for Climate Strategy and Delivery Harry Boyd-Carpenter.
Overall 2021 figures:
Low- and middle-income countries
In 2021, MDBs provided around US$ 51 billion (62 per cent) in climate finance to low- and middle-income economies. Of this total, more than US$ 33 billion (65 per cent) was for climate change mitigation and more than US$ 17 billion (35 per cent) for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilised private finance stood at US$ 13 billion.
High-income countries
In addition, in 2021, MDBs provided more than US$ 31 billion (38 per cent) in climate finance to high-income economies, of which US$ 29 billion (95 per cent) was for climate change mitigation and US$ 1.6 billion (5 per cent) for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilised private finance stood at US$ 28 billion.
The Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks' Climate Finance is an annual collaboration to make the banks' climate finance figures public, together with a clear explanation of the methodologies for tracking this finance. This joint report, alongside the publication of climate finance statistics for each bank, is intended to track progress in relation to their climate finance targets, such as those announced around COP21, and the greater ambition pledged for the post-2020 period.
The 2021 multilateral development bank report, coordinated by the EIB, combines data from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IADB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and the World Bank Group (WBG). This year's report also summarises information on climate finance tracking from the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), presented separately from the joint figures.
