Climate finance by multilateral development banks hits historic record in 2023

• Sum for low-and middle-income economies was $74.7 billion, including $24.7 billion for climate change adaptation
• MDBs offered record $125 billion last year for climate action worldwide
• Mobilized global private finance nearly doubled to $101 billion compared to 2022

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) announced today that their global climate finance reached a record high of $125 billion in 2023. The combined total last year, including the Inter-American Development Bank, is more than double the amount provided in 2019, when MDBs announced their ambition to increase volumes over-time at the United Nations Secretary General's Climate Action Summit.

Low and middle-income economies

Last year, $74.7 billion of MDB climate finance were for low- and middle-income economies. Of this sum, 67% - or $50 billion - went to climate change mitigation and $24.7 billion, or 33%, for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilized private finance for this group of countries stood at $28.5 billion.

High-income economies

In 2023, $50.3 billion were allocated for high-income economies. Of this amount, $47.3 billion, or 94%, were for climate change mitigation and the remaining $3 billion or 6% were for climate change adaptation. The amount of mobilized private finance for high-income countries stood at $72.7 billion.

Climate finance in focus at COP29

Today's announcement comes in the run-up to the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the United Nations Climate Change Conference that will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2024. One of the key deliverables of COP29 is to increase global climate finance and reach an agreement on the new collective quantified goal of climate finance.

MDBs working as a system

In April, leaders of 10 MDBs announced joint steps to work more effectively as a system and increase the impact and scale of their work. In a Viewpoint Note, the leaders outlined key deliverables for joint and coordinated action in 2024, focusing on climate action including developing a common approach to measuring climate results and supporting countries to design country platforms, among others. 

IDB lending in Latin American and Caribbean countries

In 2023, the IDB climate finance to Latin American and Caribbean countries totalled $7.5 billion, consisting of $6.1 billion to the public sector from IDB, $1.5 billion through IDB Invest's total commitments of own-account long-term finance, and $25 million for innovative projects from the IDB Lab. The IDB reports on all member countries collectively given that several small-island and low-lying coastal states in the region remain critically vulnerable to climate change regardless of income level.

"The IDB is committed to triple its climate finance in the next decade and offer a diverse set of innovative financial instruments to boost the scale of climate action in the region. The MDBs will jointly report on climate financing towards a new collective goal on climate finance", said IDB president, Ilan Goldfajn.

Transparent joint reporting on climate finance

The Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks' Climate Finance is an annual collaboration to publish MDBs' climate finance figures, together with a clear explanation of the methodologies for tracking this finance. The joint report, along with the banks' independent publication of their own individual climate finance statistics, is intended to track progress in relation to their joint climate finance objectives such as those announced at COP21 and the greater ambition pledged for the post-2020 period.

The 2023 multilateral development bank report, coordinated by the European Investment Bank (EIB), 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).

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