Nine multilateral development banks plan to increase global climate investments to $ 175 bn by 2025

23 / 09 / 2019

By Marwa Nassar - -

Nine multilateral development banks (MDBs) announced during the Climate Action Summit in New York their plans to increase the global climate action investments they support each year to $ 175 billion by 2025.

In 2018, MDB climate finance in developing countries and emerging economies already reached record annual levels: resulting in $ 111 billion of combined MDB climate finance and co-finance.

“We will focus on building and strengthening partnerships for greater impact,” said the statement by MDBs, which have been at the forefront of ambitious climate action for more than a decade. It added: “We are united in increasing our collective ambitions, as well as our clients’, to ensure that the common goals of the Paris Agreement will be met.”

The increased funding will come in three streams. Annual combined MDB climate finance globally will rise to $ 65 billion by 2025 – a 50 percent increase from current levels – with $ 50 billion for low and middle income economies. Within this total, annual combined climate adaptation finance will double to $ 18 billion by 2025. Annual co-financing for investment in climate action is expected to rise significantly to $ 110 billion by 2025. Of that, US$ 40 billion is expected to be mobilized from private sector investors.

The joint financing pledge comes amidst growing evidence of the need for urgent and systemic combined action to meet the common goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which aims to limit the increase in global temperatures to well below 2°C, pursuing efforts for 1.5°C.