Germany plans to raise climate financing to €6 bln by 2025, welcomed by NGOs

Germany will raise its federal budget contribution for international climate financing from the current four billion euros to six billion euros annually by 2025. The success of the upcoming UN climate change conference COP26 “depends crucially on the commitments of the industrialised countries to climate finance”, said a government spokesperson at the sidelines of the G7 summit in the UK. German development cooperation minister Gerd Müller welcomed Angela Merkel’s promise, and said that being a climate action pioneer also meant investing more in the global energy transition. “The countries of Africa in particular urgently need more support to develop renewable energies,” said Müller, adding that he would make this a priority during upcoming talks in West Africa.

NGOs welcomed the decision. Germany’s 6-billion-euro announcement “is an important step forward, although it should have been more ambitious and include a commitment to earmark 50 percent of all climate finance for adaptation”, said Jan Kowalzig, senior policy advisor on climate at Oxfam Germany. “We now hope that after the federal elections in autumn, a new government will increase climate finance further, truly facing up to Germany’s responsibility towards poor countries at the forefront of the worsening climate crisis,” he added.  Germanwatch’s David Ryfisch said chancellor Merkel “once again demonstrated how important multilateralism and international solidarity are to her”. He called for a comprehensive assessment of how much money is necessary to keep the world on path to reaching the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C.

At the summit, the Group of Seven (G7) nations agreed to step up action on climate change and renewed a pledge to raise 100 billion U.S. dollars a year from 2020 onwards to help poor countries cut emissions – a goal which likely was not reached in 2020. The leaders also committed to accelerating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and keep the 1.5°C global warming threshold within reach. “We will do everything we can to stick to 1.5,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in a message on Twitter. Some environmental groups said G7 promises on climate lacked detail.