Last month, the COP 26 presidency published a Climate Finance Delivery Plan that outlines how and when high-income countries can reach the $100 billion climate finance goal — the promise made to the world’s lower-income countries in 2009 that has yet to be achieved.
Climate financing data isn’t easy to track. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development development assistance committee’s Rio markers have similar issues as the gender marker methodology — the definition of “climate” is rather loose, which potentially means donors can overstate how much they are directing toward climate goals. Despite this, they are one of the key datasets used to track and evaluate progress.
Below we explore the available donor funding data from OECD that is analyzed by Donor Tracker. According to the tracker, the total climate change contributions include those for mitigation, adaptation, and financing meant to address both. This means that for climate adaptation financing, both adaptation and crosscutting funding are exclusively accounted for.