Funding trends

In 2018, bilateral official development assistance (ODA) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors that contributed to climate objectives stood at US$33.2 billion. This represents a 37% increase from US$24.2 billion in 2014 and includes funding for projects that include climate change mitigation and/or adaptation as either a principal or a significant goal (see box below for details). Of this US$33.2 billion, 48% went to climate change mitigation activities, 25% to climate change adaptation, and 27% to projects that addressed both climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The picture changes when looking at funding for projects that integrate climate-related goals as the principal objective: Principal climate-related funding stood at US$10.7 billion in 2018, down by 26% since 2014 (US$14.4 billion).

Top donors

In 2018, the donors that made the largest commitments of climate-related ODA (including both principal and significant funding) were Japan (US$9.6 billion), Germany (US$8.0 billion), the EU institutions (US$5.6 billion), the United Kingdom (US$2.0 billion), and Sweden (US$1.4 billion). In relative terms, the top donors were Japan (53% of bilateral allocable ODA), Slovenia (45%), Germany (42%), Sweden, (40%), and Poland (37%).

The largest commitments of principal funding for action against climate change in 2018 were made by Germany (US$4.0 billion), the EU Institutions (US$1.8 billion), the United Kingdom (US$1.5), the United States (US$646 million), and Japan (US$539 million). In terms of principal funding as a percentage of overall bilateral allocable ODA, Poland (35%), the United Kingdom (22%), Germany (21%), Canada (18%), and Norway (14%) were the top donors.

These figures are based on funding for projects tagged in the OECD’s Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database with the Rio markers for climate change mitigation and/or climate change adaptation. Projects can be tagged with either or both markers.

Each marker has three possible scores:

1. Principal, for projects in which climate change mitigation or adaptation is a fundamental and explicitly stated goal;
2. Significant, for projects in which climate change mitigation or adaptation is not a key driver but still an explicitly stated goal; or
3. Not targeted, meaning the project does not address climate change mitigation or adaptation.

Not all projects are screened against the Rio markers; this funding falls into the ‘not screened’ category.

Unless otherwise indicated, all data in this section is based on commitments. For more information, see our Donor Tracker Codebook.