Far from meeting developing nations’ needs: Climate activists on OECD report

However, the scale of climate finance mobilised is far below what countries are expected to provide annually from 2035 onwards under the new collective quantified goal (NCQG), according to the OECD report. The OECD is an international organisation of 38 countries, founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress, and consists mostly of high-income countries.

In 2009, at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, developed countries committed to a goal of raising USD 100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. They specified that the finance would come from a wide variety of sources — public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative ones. The climate finance goal was formalised at COP16 in Cancun but was not delivered until 2022.

In 2024, countries set a new climate finance goal, committing to deliver at least USD 300 billion annually for developing countries for climate action by 2035. This remains far from meeting developing countries’ financial needs to fund their climate action, Climate Action Network (CAN) said in a statement on Thursday.

“This is against the backdrop of the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran and across the Southwest Asia and North Africa region, which is creating a severe economic shock for developing countries that simultaneously reduces their ability to fund climate action and increases their vulnerability,” it added.

Those numbers have to be read within a broader context of steep Overseas Development Aid cuts since 2024, CAN stressed. HT reported in 2024 that India was particularly concerned about the low NCQG target. Several developing country negotiators, including India, described the decision as “too little, too late.” Developing countries had quantified their needs at at least USD 600 billion annually.

“The OECD report shows developed countries exceeded the $100bn goal for the third consecutive year, but the target was met two years late and remains modest against the new $300bn NCQG goal and aspirational $1.3tn target. The report also raises important questions around quality and equity, for instance, loans continue to dominate public climate finance, and the share of concessional bilateral loans declined. Lastly, most mobilised private finance continues to flow to middle-income countries and mitigation projects, reiterating that private capital follows bankability rather than climate vulnerability or need,” programme officer for Climate Change and Green Economy at Centre for Science and Environment (India), Sehr Raheja, said.

Head of Climate at CAN Europe Sven Harmeling said in a statement, “A further increase in climate finance is urgently needed to support countries and communities in the Global South to confront the climate crisis. While the OECD report signals that such an increase took place in 2024, many European countries then cut their climate finance spending in 2025. These harsh cuts breach their obligations to provide such support, undermines Europe’s reputation as a credible partner, and is against Europe’s strategic interests in every sense of the word.”