For the first time, rich nations in 2022 delivered on a longstanding pledge to channel at least $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing nations – two years later than originally promised, official figures showed on Wednesday.
Their failure to meet the goal on time has been a sore point in the UN climate talks, fuelling distrust between wealthy governments and poorer countries, which have struggled to cover the cost of switching to cleaner energy and adapting to worsening climate change impacts.
According to the new data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), developed countries provided and mobilised $115.9 billion in climate finance for developing countries in 2022, up from $89.6 billion in 2021.
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, a former Australian finance minister, said “exceeding” the annual commitment was “an important and symbolic achievement which goes some way towards making up for the two-year delay” and “should help build trust”.
The year-to-year increase of around 30% was the largest to date and was driven by significant funding increases from multilateral development banks – which contributed the most at $50.6 billion – individual governments and private finance mobilised by using public money to reduce investment risk.
Climate finance analysts criticised the quality of climate finance and the way the OECD calculates the figures.
Harjeet Singh, a veteran climate justice activist, said the process of providing and accounting for climate finance “is riddled with ambiguity and inadequacies” – a complaint long echoed by developing countries, which have called for more clarity and transparency on how the numbers are worked out.
“Much of the funding is repackaged as loans rather than grants and is often intertwined with existing aid, blurring the lines of true financial assistance,” said Singh.
The OECD report showed that in 2022, as in previous years, public climate finance mainly took the form of loans, which accounted for 69% or $63.6 billion. Not all of this lending was concessional, some was on market terms.
Grants, by contrast, made up just 28% of the total at $25.6 billion, with equity investments far smaller at $2.4 billion.
Development aid re-labelled?
Climate finance experts have also raised concerns over donor countries repurposing existing aid flows to meet the $100-billion target. A recent analysis by the Center for Global Development (CGD), a Washington-based think-tank, estimated that over a third of the money provided by developed countries in 2022 came from existing aid pots.
“A significant part of the increase is due to providers stretching, redirecting, and re-labelling existing development finance,” said Ian Mitchell, senior policy fellow at CGD and one of the report’s authors.
In February, an independent watchdog found the UK had counted an additional £1.7 billion ($2.15 billion) towards its £11.6-billion climate finance target without giving any more money to vulnerable countries, mainly by re-badging other forms of aid as it sought to counter fiscal pressures related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The way in which climate finance contributions by donor countries are counted and tracked will be part of negotiations this year on a new finance goal set to be agreed at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in November.
The new collective quantified goal (NCQG) for finance is the most important decision expected to be taken at this year’s COP and will replace the current $100-billion commitment, due to expire in 2025.
Experts believe an ambitious deal can play a crucial role in getting developing countries, especially the poorest ones, to commit to stronger action on emissions and adaptation as they draft their new national climate plans due in early 2025.
Melanie Robinson, global climate, economics and finance director at the World Resources Institute, said filling the funding gap for poorer nations should be “the top priority” for the NCQG negotiations at COP29 but success will hinge on more than just securing a much larger top-line dollar amount.
“For instance, it is crucial that the new climate finance goal ensures that funding is accessible and doesn’t burden developing countries with more unsustainable debt,” she said, calling for strong measures to report progress, hold countries accountable for meeting their obligations on time and boost the transparency of all climate finance.
‘Progress on adaptation finance’
Alongside simmering tensions over a push by wealthy nations to expand the pool of donor countries, and differing views on whether the new goal should include wider sources of climate finance, the most vulnerable countries have called for a specific target for adaptation funding.
Finance to help countries adapt their economies and societies to fiercer heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods, as well as rising seas, has always lagged far behind investment in clean energy and other measure to cut emissions – even as those climate impacts accelerate faster than scientists expected.
Under pressure at the COP26 climate talks in 2021, developed countries urged each other to at least double their provision of adaptation finance to developing nations by 2025 from the roughly $19 billion they gave in 2019.
This week, the OECD figures showed that at the halfway point in 2022, adaptation funding from developed nations rose to $28.9 billion – the highest ever – with an additional $3.5 billion mobilised from the private sector.
The Paris-based watchdog said progress towards meeting the target “has been made and needs to be maintained”.
Activist Singh said climate-vulnerable people and ecosystems needed rich nations to urgently step up and deliver “real, substantial financial support”.
“It’s not just about the numbers; it’s about integrity and genuine support,” he added. “As we stand today, the financial needs of developing countries for transitioning away from fossil fuels and dealing with climate impacts have skyrocketed into the trillions.”
(Reporting by Megan Rowling and Matteo Civillini; editing by Joe Lo)
The post Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late appeared first on Climate Home News.
Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late
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Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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