In 2009, high-income countries promised to provide $100bn a year in climate finance to low- and middle-income countries by 2020. They have failed to keep this promise. Their official reports claim that the climate finance they provided and mobilized reached $83.3bn in 2020.

In this new analysis, Oxfam estimates the impact of generous accounting pracitices that lead to significant over-estimation of provided support. By that estimate, the actual, net support value of climate-targeted finance to low-income countries may have amlounted to a mere $21-24.5 billion, much lower than what officially reported figures suggest. The analysis also shows that there are too many loans, too much debt, too few grants, too little for adaptation, and too much misleading accounting in climate finance.

This paper sets out recommendations for action at COP27 and beyond to rectify these issues, restore trust in climate finance and stop the world’s poorest climate-vulnerable countries and communities being short-changed of the climate finance they urgently need, and to which they are entitled.

Download Briefing Paper (PDF, 16 Pages)