Global climate finance reached a record high of $125 billion in 2023, according to the latest Joint Report on Multinational Development Banks’ Climate Finance report published on Sept. 20 — a 25% increase from $99.7 billion in 2022.
The report comes on the heels of the hottest year on record with the highest number of climate disasters yet. Climate-related deaths globally hit 12,000, according to the international disaster database. The United States alone experienced more than $92.9 billion in damages and 492 deaths from climate and weather disasters.
In 2022, the world surpassed its $100 billion per year financing target — established in 2009 — for the first time. But COP 29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Azerbaijan in November, is expected to produce an updated climate finance target for donor countries, known as the new collective quantified goal, or NCGQ. Parties have agreed that the new target must surpass $100 billion and be focused on the needs and priorities of low- and middle-income countries, but experts don’t yet know much more than that.