MDBs publish 2020 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance; Eight MDBs committed $66 billion for climate finance in 2020, up from $61.6 billion.
Climate finance committed by major multilateral development banks (MDBs) rose to a total of $66 billion last year from $61.6 billion in 2019, according to the 2020 Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance published today.
Together, MDB climate finance and climate co-finance totaled more than $151 billion. In the past six years, the MDBs have jointly committed a total of $257 billion in climate finance, of which $186 billion was directed at low- and middle-income economies.
In 2019, at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit, MDBs announced their expected joint annual climate action finance to 2025. These include at least $65 billion, with $50 billion of MDB climate finance for low-income and middle-income countries.
“The MDBs will continue to improve their tracking and reporting of climate finance in the context of their commitments to ensure consistent financial flows to the countries’ long-term, low-carbon and climate-resilient development pathways, as established in Article 2.1 of the Paris Agreement,” says the 2020 report.
“The African Development Bank’s share of climate change related investments has increased four-fold from 2016 to 2019 and is expected to reach 40% of the Bank’s total investment at the end of 2021,” said Mr. Al-Hamndou Dorsouma, Officer-In-Charge Director of Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank.
While these programmes affected MDBs’ normal lending operations and thus the delivery of their climate finance targets, seeing the total commitments for low- and middle-income countries dip from 2019’s $41.5 billion, the 2020 report says interventions and support from the MDBs laid a solid foundation for “building back better” for a greener, more resilient, post-Covid-19 future.
Nearly $50 billion (76 per cent) of total MDB climate finance in 2020 was associated with climate change mitigation investments that aim to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions and slow down global warming.
More than $16 billion (24 per cent) for climate change adaptation finance was invested in adaptation efforts to help countries build resilience to the mounting impacts of climate change, including worsening droughts and more extreme weather events, from flooding to rising sea levels.
As part of the MDBs’ ambition to extend and enhance climate finance reporting, the 2020 report also summarizes information on climate finance tracking from the New Development Bank (NDB), presented separately from the joint figures and not yet included in the MDB climate finance total.
