Climate finance from multilateral development banks increased to $125 billion last year, according to a new report.
The 2023 Multilateral Development Bank report prepared by the European Investment Bank (EIB) found that the total is more than double provided back in 2019, and up 25 per cent from the previous year.
In 2023, US$ 50.3 billion was allocated for high-income economies, rising by 30 per cent. Ninety-four per cent of this was for climate change mitigation, while 6 per cent was for adaptation.
Meanwhile, finance in low- and middle-income economies grew by 22 per cent to $74.7 billion, with 67 per cent going to mitigation, and 33 per cent to adaptation.
The amount of mobilised private finance for this group of countries stood at US$ 28.5 billion.
The report combines data from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the EIB, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the New Development Bank (NDB) and the World Bank Group (WBG).
Commenting on the report, EBRD’s Managing Director for Climate Strategy and Delivery, Harry Boyd-Carpenter, said: “We are acutely conscious that 2023 was an unprecedented year for both high temperatures and renewable-energy installations, emphasising both the urgency of addressing the climate emergency and the scale of the economic opportunity.”
Despite this news of “record climate finance levels for the MDBs as a group,” the climate finance gap that remains is huge, with trillions required each year.
Speaking on this, ADB Director General for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Bruno Carrasco said in a statement: “There remains a large financing gap and ADB will continue to work closely with other MDBs—and in its own right—to get as much financing as possible to our developing member countries.”
Climate finance is set to be in the spotlight in November at COP29 in Baku when an agreement on the new collective quantified goal of climate finance is due and greater global climate finance commitments.