EU demonstrates commitment to developing countries by stepping up climate finance to €17.6 bln

The Commission welcomes the European Union's strong commitment to scale-up financing for climate action in developing countries, which showed a significant increase in 2015.

The EU, EIB and Member States last year provided EUR 17.6 billion to help developing countries tackle climate change. The figure was confirmed at a meeting of the EU Economic and Financial Committee.

This demonstrates the EU's determination to contribute its fair share of the goal set by developed countries to provide USD100 billion in annual finance to developing countries from various sources by 2020. The recent Climate Finance Roadmap prepared by the donor community indicates that they are on track to meet the ambitious goal. A new collective goal will be set by 2025.

Climate change and energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete said: "Europe has once again shown its generosity, despite tight budgetary constraints. In 2015, the EU increased its climate finance contribution by more than 20%. With this increase, and through financial instruments like the European Fund for Sustainable Development that plans to spend 20% of its EUR44 billion on renewable energy and climate change projects, the EU is showing that it is serious about contributing its part towards achieving the USD100 billion goal in 2020."

Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Pierre Moscovici said: "Europeans can be rightly proud of these figures, which confirm once again that the EU and its Member States lead the way in providing public climate finance for developing countries. This will continue to be the case even as we call for fair burden sharing among developed countries – and as we work to also mobilise more private climate finance to complement public efforts."

The announcement comes ahead of the UN climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, from 7-18 November, where ministers will focus on the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, including action to accelerate access to finance for developing countries.

Background on EU climate finance action

The EU and its Member States are the biggest contributors of public climate finance to developing countries. Together they provide around a third of public funding available for action to tackle climate change and account for almost half of the pledges in the Green Climate Fund. In the period 2014-2020 at least 20% of the EU budget will be spent on climate-related action.

The EU funds the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA), one of the world’s largest climate initiatives. To scale up support for the poorest and most vulnerable, the EU has launched a new phase (GCCA+), with an expected commitment of around €350 million for 2014-2020. This will support least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS) in adapting to the impacts of climate change and integrating climate change resilience in their overall development planning and implementation.

Read more:

• International climate finance