Hollow Commitments: An analysis of developed countries’ climate finance plans

Advocacy

Rich countries’ latest climate finance plans still fall short of the $100 billion target they committed to in 2009 and contain a woeful lack of detail, predictability or clarity regarding delivery and timeline for future funds, analysis from CARE has found.

CARE analyzed the most recent official finance plans that developed countries submitted under the Paris Agreement and found that despite vocal pledges of support for vulnerable countries from the G7 and other wealthy nations, the actual information submitted by all 24 assessed donors falls well short of what was requested and is nowhere near a roadmap that ensures rich countries deliver on their climate finance commitments.

According to the OECD, wealthy countries’ support for climate action in developing countries is at least $20 billion below the $100 billion a year they committed to over a decade ago. This means there is an urgent need for them to deliver increased climate finance in the near future.

CARE’s Hollow Commitments report provides a detailed analysis of all submissions from 24 countries and ranks them on a points system.

Iceland and the United States (US) did not provide biennial communication submissions, despite their obligation to do so. These two Parties have not fulfilled their commitment to provide indicative quantitative and qualitative information on projected levels of public climate finances to be provided to developing country Parties. In absence of a formal submission, this report includes an informal and unscored analysis of the US International Climate Finance Plan announced at the April 2021 Leaders Summit on Climate (The White House, 2021).

Out of the 24 assessed, Luxembourg and Sweden top the table but there is still room for improvement in their ex-ante reporting, with both countries only scoring around half of the possible points. At the bottom of the table, five countries received no points at all (Austria, Greece, Japan, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) indicating that their reports are extremely poor.

A further 11 countries obtained only a quarter, or less, of the possible points. This group includes countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway, countries which usually picture themselves as leaders in international development.