In 2009, developed countries committed to providing $100 billion each year in climate finance by 2020. Despite an urgent need to ramp up financial support for developing countries, the target has yet to be hit.

Responsibility for this failure lies on developed nations. But the collective nature of international climate commitments often shields countries with an acute responsibility for missing them. In a bid to strengthen accountability, ODI publishes an annual report assessing each developed country’s progress towards paying their ‘fair share’ of the $100 billion target. This is based on their historical responsibility for cumulative greenhouse gas emissions, gross national income, and population size. In this third edition, we use the latest 2021 data on international public climate finance flows to evaluate each country’s progress.

As well as assessing contributions to the $100 billion goal, this year we apply the same approach to adaptation finance. Historically given less finance than mitigation, developing countries’ needs for adaptation finance are growing. This was made clear at COP 27 where developed nations were urged to at least double adaptation finance flows to developing countries.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute