CANBERRA — In 2009, high-income countries committed to mobilizing $100 billion per year in climate finance by 2020, with the goal of supporting low- and middle-income countries in combating the challenges of climate change. In assessing the data behind the commitment, loosely defined terminology and timelines are the greatest barriers to determining if this achievement has been made or will be made this year.
Primary sources of data are the biennial reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by countries supporting this commitment. But official development assistance — or ODA — as reported to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, is also an important way to monitor progress, with the two datasets sometimes providing inconsistent results.
Raimund Zühr and Sinead Dwyer from SEEK Development have been delving into OECD data since 2015 to create country profiles on climate funding through the Donor Tracker website. They told Devex the data raises more questions than answers.