Published

2 years ago

May 30, 2024

Alice Rush

Billions of dollars of foreign aid have been reclassified as “climate finance”, thereby helping rich countries to meet a long-overdue target, according to new analysis.

Newly released figures suggest that developed nations achieved their goal of raising $100bn in climate aid for developing countries in 2022 – two years after the deadline.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says these countries raised $115.9bn for climate-related projects, following a record surge in spending.

However, analysis conducted by the Center for Global Development (CGD) and shared with Carbon Brief suggests that around $27bn of the $94.2bn increase in public climate funds over the past two decades came from existing development aid.

Specifically, the CGD identified at least $6.5bn of climate aid within the record 2022 increase that was diverted from other aid programmes. This is despite pledges by wealthy countries to provide climate finance that is “new and additional”.

Such accounting changes could allow some developed countries to reach their climate targets, even while slashing their wider aid budgets.

Meanwhile, wealthy nations are under pressure to rapidly increase climate spending in the global south. At COP29 this year, all parties must agree on a new climate target that will help raise the trillions of dollars these nations say they need to address climate change.

‘Largest increase’

The $100bn target was set in 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen to help developing countries cut their emissions and protect themselves from climate change.

A group of “developed” countries, including many European nations, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, agreed to “mobilise” this amount by 2020 and then each year through to 2025.

This money largely comes from countries’ foreign-aid budgets, which finance climate-related development projects. A smaller proportion is also raised from the private sector.

Crucially, countries have determined during UN climate negotiations that climate finance should be “new and additional”. This is generally interpreted as meaning it should be supplied on top of existing aid.

Developed countries failed to hit the $100bn goal by 2020, raising just $83.3bn that year. This was poorly received by developing country governments, who view this money as essential to meet their climate targets under the Paris Agreement.

Last year, the OECD, which tracks international climate finance, announced that developed countries had “likely” met the target in 2022 – two years late. It did not release the data underpinning this estimate at the time.

The OECD has now published a report confirming that the $100bn goal was met. In fact, the organisation says climate finance underwent its “largest year-on-year increase observed to date” in 2022 – reaching $115.9bn. This $26.3bn increase can be seen in the chart below.

Climate finance, $bn, provided and mobilised by developed countries between 2013-2022. Private finance data for 2015 is not available. Source: OECD. Chart: Carbon Brief.

This uptick in climate finance was driven by record increases in spending both bilaterally – directly from country-to-country – and via multilateral development banks and funds.

There was also an unprecedented $7.5bn increase in private finance, which was mobilised by developed country investment. This comes after years of private investment remaining essentially unchanged each year.

The OECD notes that the “lion’s share” of public climate finance was provided as loans – around 69% of the total. This has raised concerns, given the number of global south countries that are already struggling with debt.

‘New and additional’

Countries are set to decide on a new climate-finance goal – known as the “new collective quantified goal” – at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, later this year. This target is expected to go beyond the $100bn goal and be based on an assessment of countries’ real-world needs.

Meanwhile, some wealthy countries have announced major cuts to their foreign-aid budgets. Many nations have also decided to channel large amounts of aid to Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion in 2022, while also diverting funds to accommodate refugees on their own soil.

All of this could squeeze the wider development-aid budget and, in theory, make achieving climate finance goals more challenging.

Some countries, including the UK, have opted to meet their climate finance targets by “redirecting” or “relabelling” existing funds as “climate finance”, while failing to commit new money in sufficient volumes.

According to analysis by the CGD – released one week ahead of the OECD’s assessment – this is largely what enabled developed countries to meet the $100bn target in 2022.

It concluded that, when considering public climate finance, the goal was “partly achieved by adding climate objectives to existing development finance flows”. (The CGD analysis did not attempt to estimate the increase in private finance, assuming it would remain stable as it had in previous years.)

Applying the CGD analysis to the public portion of the OECD’s $115.9bn climate finance figure – which amounted to $94.2bn – shows that around $27bn comes from existing development aid.

This is based on overall aid only increasing $67.2bn between 2009 and 2022, meaning the remaining increase in climate aid must have come from existing sources.

Ian Mitchell, the CGD senior policy fellow who led the analysis, tells Carbon Brief:

“The intention was to provide ‘new and additional’ finance and I think the very lowest bar for that is that the face value of [total] finance would have gone up $100bn.”

As the chart below shows, while the overall aid budget grew in 2022, due partly to new aid for Ukraine and more spending on housing refugees, existing bilateral development aid fell in 2022.

Given this, the CGD says the $6.5bn increase in climate finance that year can definitively be attributed to countries’ existing foreign-aid budgets, rather than an increase in spending.

Bilateral development aid spending by developed countries, with specific issues indicated in shades of blue and everything else in red. This chart is based on CGD figures, meaning the bilateral public climate finance targets do not align precisely with the official OECD figures. Source: CGD. Chart: Carbon Brief.

Diverting funds

Mitchell highlights the key issue with hitting climate finance targets without committing enough new resources:

“The problem with meeting that $100bn from existing resources is that it’s either rebadging it, which is not providing climate finance, or it’s diverting it from other development objectives…reducing spend on health or education.”

However, Joe Thwaites, senior international climate finance advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), tells Carbon Brief that not all diversions are “bad diversions”.

A report by the thinktank ODI last year found that much of the funding being reclassified came from sectors such as energy and transport. Thwaites points out that this could mean cutting back on support for fossil fuels and targeting clean energy instead:

“Given the massive development and climate needs, we need to be growing the overall international public-finance pie. But shifting finance from one area to another isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it all depends what it’s being taken from and going to.”

More broadly, Harjeet Singh, global climate lead at Climate Action Network (CAN) International, tells Carbon Brief that developed countries are taking advantage of “creative accounting” and “fiscal loopholes” to meet their targets.

He warns that, as nations prepare to negotiate a new climate finance target at COP29, there is a need for a clear definition of what counts as “climate finance” to avoid such behaviour:

“The absence of a unified definition of climate finance is not a mere oversight; it mirrors historical patterns of power…Developed countries have aimed to keep their financial responsibilities ambiguous.”

The post Rich countries met $100bn climate-finance goal by ‘relabelling existing aid’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Rich countries met $100bn climate-finance goal by ‘relabelling existing aid’

Climate Change

Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Protecting Colombia’s Magdalena River From Fracking

Published

6 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Yuvelis Morales Blanco, 24, helped halt fracking along Colombia’s largest river and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. She’s faced death threats and exile for her advocacy.

By Katie Surma

As a child growing up along the banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River, Yuvelis Morales Blanco learned to read the water.

Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Protecting Colombia’s Magdalena River From Fracking

Climate Change

As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location

Published

11 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Freepoint Eco-Systems seeks to become a major player in so-called “chemical recycling.” Some residents and environmental advocates are fighting back.

By James Bruggers

Belching smoke from a new plastic waste processing plant in central Ohio has stirred opposition to an even larger “chemical recycling” factory planned for Arizona by the same company.

As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location

Climate Change

Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’

Published

13 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Countries attending a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel summit have been asked to consider “action recommendations” such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, according to a preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief.

Around 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April to debate ways to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in the face of worsening climate change and sky-high oil prices.

The talks come after a large group of nations campaigned for, but ultimately failed, to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.

The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.

Ahead of country officials arriving in Santa Marta, a global group of academics will gather in the city this week to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on fossil-fuel phaseout, which will then inform debate among policymakers.

A preliminary scientific “synthesis report” circulated to governments attending the talks and seen by Carbon Brief offers 12 “action insights” for countries to consider, along with a wide range of “action recommendations”.

These recommendations range from “phase out subsidies on fossil-fuel production and consumption” to “kick-start a forum to develop a legal framework to ban fossil-fuel advertisements”.

‘Rapid’ assessment

The preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief – titled, “Action insights for the Santa Marta process” – is the result of some rapid work by an “ad-hoc” group of around 24 scientists.

It is designed to present governments attending the talks with concrete and actionable recommendations for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The preliminary version, which includes recommendations such as “halting all new fossil fuel expansion”, has already been circulated to governments, with a view that this could help them to prepare for the talks in advance.

It will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.

The process to produce the report began shortly after the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November, explains its lead author, Dr Friedrich Bohn, a research scientist and co-founder of the Earth Resilience Institute in Germany. He tells Carbon Brief:

“When [Brazil] announced there would be a Santa Marta conference led by Colombia and the Netherlands, I was sitting listening with a small group of scientists. We thought: ‘This is great news, but it should be supported by scientific expertise.’”

One of the members of Bohn’s group had a pre-existing relationship with the Colombian government, allowing a dialogue to quickly be established, he continues:

“In the beginning, the idea was to just write a peer-reviewed paper. But, because of this close connection to the Colombian government and some feedback from them, the synthesis paper evolved.”

The report came out of a “very rapidly evolved process” that relied on the “goodwill” and “enthusiasm” of the academics involved, adds coordinating author Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University. (Jotzo is a former Carbon Brief contributing editor.) He tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s an attempt to get broad coverage on relevant topics from researchers with good expertise and reputation.”

The group of 24 scientists involved spent around two months compiling the “action insights” for the report, drawing on their expertise and the latest available research, says Jotzo.

Given the rapid nature of the report, it does not aim to be “completist”, has not been externally reviewed and did not follow a stringent process for author selection comparable to that used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, he adds.

The contributors to the report currently skew to the global north and include more men than women, adds Bohn.

‘Direct guidance’

In a departure from IPCC reports, the preliminary Santa Marta synthesis report offers “very direct guidance to action”, says Jotzo.

The report lists 12 “action insights”, each with three “action recommendations”. (The list was cut down from a shortlist of about 40-50 insights, Carbon Brief understands.)

One of the most striking in the draft is “action insight 5”, which says:

“Take immediate measures to prevent future emissions. Ban new fossil infrastructure, mandate deep methane cuts, accelerate electrification and inscribe fossil-fuel phase-down targets in NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and clean-energy pathways support to low and middle income countries (LMICs).”

The accompanying three “action recommendations” include “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects ahead of a final investment decision”, “implementing deep, legally binding methane cuts in the energy sector” and “inscrib[ing] targets for fossil-fuel phase down, electrification and green exports in NDCs”.

(The draft report includes multiple references to “phasing out” and “phasing down” fossil fuels, rather than the “transition away from fossil fuels” language that was, ultimately, agreed by countries at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023.)

Another action insight says “public support for climate action is broadly underestimated and undermined by interest groups, but it can be strengthened by debunking greenwashing narratives”.

One recommendation for this insight is that nations “reject natural gas as a bridging technology and CCS [carbon capture and storage] techniques as scalable compensation”.

In a letter introducing the report to governments and civil society, the scientists note that making direct recommendations is a “challenge for our community”, but added:

“However, in the spirit of a constructive collaboration between science and policymaking, we allowed ourselves to identify some potential courses of action that our community would recommend for each particular issue – and we invite you to weigh these against your own circumstances and pick up whatever seems most useful for you and your colleagues.”

The prescriptiveness of the recommendations – something strictly prohibited in IPCC reports – was an explicit request from the Colombian government, Bohn says:

“The idea of actionable recommendations was introduced by the Colombian government.

“There was some discussion within the team about this. It’s a tricky area when you leave science and move to consultation. Therefore, we agreed, in the end, to call them ‘actionable recommendations’ and to make them as precise as possible, from the scientific perspective.”

Jotzo, a veteran of the IPCC process, tells Carbon Brief that it was “very liberating” to work on a report with a “free-form process”:

“The bulk of policy-related research is very readily deployed to recommendations pointing out what countries could do. The IPCC process, for example, just doesn’t allow that. As far as the summary for policymakers in the IPCC is concerned, it will usually be governments that filter out anything that could be interpreted as a specific recommendation.”

He adds that the hope is that some of the action insights might be reflected in the high-level segment of the Santa Marta conference:

“No one is under any illusions that governments will walk away from the Santa Marta conference and will have made a decision to implement recommendations one, seven and nine – or something like that. But it is a chance to insert directly applicable action points into national and plurilateral policy agendas.”

Colombia calling

The preliminary report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the “pre-academic segment” of the Santa Marta talks.

This is taking place from 24-26 April, ahead of the “high-level segment” involving ministers and other policymakers from 28-29 April.

The pre-academic segment will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, Carbon Brief understands.

The high-level segment is expected to be attended by representatives from around 50 countries, including COP31 host Turkey and major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway.

Countries expected to attend account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.

At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.

This report is in turn set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.

The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.