Germany reaches €6 bln climate finance target three years early

Germany reached its target of raising six billion euros from its state budget for international climate finance three years ahead of time, said the development ministry (BMZ). Germany’s climate finance in 2022 totalled around 6.4 billion euros, up from 5.3 billion euros in 2021, and thus surpassed the six-billion target set for 2025. State secretary Jochen Flasbarth said he is “confident that we can maintain the level of six billion euros in the years to come.”

In June 2021, at the Group of Seven (G7) summit, then-chancellor Angela Merkel promised to increase the federal budget contribution for international climate finance from four to six billion euros annually by 2025. In addition to private money leveraged with the help of the government, these public funds are part of a pledge made in 2009 by rich countries to raise 100 billion U.S. dollars a year from 2020 onwards to help developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. By 2020, these promises were not fulfilled and only 83.4 billion was raised. This current year could be the first in which the 100 billion target is reached, government officials said. Development minister Svenja Schulze, of the Social Democrats (SDP), said: “The promise of the industrialised countries to mobilise 100 billion U.S. dollars per year from 2020 to combat climate change in developing countries is central to the credibility of the Global North. Many developing countries want to see us deliver on our part of the deal before they commit to further climate action.”

The 2022 sum of 6.4 billion euros also contains 1.4 billion euros in special funds to counteract a food crisis due to the lack of grain supplies, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, wrote Süddeutsche Zeitung who first reported about the surpassed target. Jan Kowalzig, a climate finance expert working for development organisation Oxfam, told the newspaper that the 6.4 billion figure is a good development on paper, “but you have to look at it more closely” and the target should be met every year from now on. Oxfam has long been critical of the financial commitments made by industrialised countries, stating that generous accounting practices cause them to overestimate their level of support; and that much of the funding is in the form of loans, putting developing countries at risk for debt burdens.