Climate finance: EU and member states’ contributions up to €21.7 billion in 2018

Contributions from the EU and its member states to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of climate change have more than doubled since 2013.

The total was confirmed in the context of conclusions adopted by finance ministers today, ahead of COP25, the UN climate change conference, which will take place in Madrid from 2 to 13 December 2019.

The EU and its member states remain the largest provider of public climate finance. Their total contributions amounted to €21.7 billion in 2018, up from €20.4 billion in 2017. The contributions were successfully channelled into climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives in developing countries.

The contribution is seen as an important step towards the implementation of the legally binding climate change agreement reached in Paris in December 2015.

The latest figure demonstrates the EU’s determination to scale up its international climate finance contribution towards the $100 billion per year goal set for industrialised countries by 2020 and through until 2025. By 2025, the parties will set a new collective quantified goal. In this regard, the conclusions note the EU’s commitment to engage in these discussions as of November 2020.

The conclusions also stress the importance of an urgent and ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement. They call for swift and ambitious progress on making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development. In this regard, they highlight the recent progress achieved in legislative reforms at EU level on sustainable finance (taxonomy, benchmarks, disclosures).