In 2022, the European Union and its 27 member states contributed EUR 28.5 billion1 in climate finance from public sources and mobilised an additional amount of EUR 11.9 billion2 of private finance to support developing countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The Council approved the figures today, in preparation for the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28), which will take place from 30 November to 12 December in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The figures are based on the EU climate finance reporting rules laid down in the governance regulation.3

In 2022, over 54% of the EUR 28.5 billion public funding for developing countries was dedicated to either climate adaptation or cross-cutting action (involving both climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives), with close to half of the total funding (almost 49%) coming in the form of grants, according to data compiled by the European Commission.

The EU and its member states are determined to continue delivering on their international climate finance commitments towards the developed countries' collective goal of mobilising USD 100 billion per year, which is applicable through to 2025. This resolve is demonstrated by the new level of EU climate finance reached in 2022, which represents a significant progression compared to previous years.

International public climate finance plays an important role in helping developing countries to implement the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, together with climate finance from private sources.

1 Climate finance from public budgets includes EUR 4.0 billion from the EU budget and the European Development Fund and EUR 5.7 billion from the European Investment Bank. The overall public figure is calculated by using a new methodology, based on commitments for bilateral and disbursements of multilateral finance made in 2022.

For the 2020 and 2021 figures, the overall public contribution was calculated based on commitments, for both bilateral and multilateral support. The new methodology aims to improve clarity and accuracy in reporting the contributions, by using the disbursements on multilateral finance as basis for calculations, to minimise the risk of over-reporting in case of delayed, partial or decommissioned disbursements from multi-year commitments. If previous years’ methodology was employed, the overall public finance contribution for 2022 would have been EUR 30.5 billion, up from EUR 23 billion in 2021.

2 The figure regards the private financial support mobilised through public interventions (e.g., guarantees, syndicated loans, direct investment in companies, credit lines, etc.). It does not include any amounts of public finance utilised for the mobilisation of this private financial support.

3 EU member states reported data on commitments pursuant to article 19.3 of regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 (‘governance regulation’) and article 6 and annexes III-V of Commission implementing regulation 2020/1208.

Infographic - Europe's contribution to climate finance (€bn)

Europe's contribution to climate finance (in €bn)

Since 2013, Europe has more than doubled the funds raised to help developing countries mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change.

The EU and its member states raised:

    EUR 9.6 billion in 2013
    EUR 14.5 billion in 2014
    EUR 17.6 billion in 2015
    EUR 20.2 billion in 2016
    EUR 20.4 billion in 2017
    EUR 21.7 billion in 2018
    EUR 23.2 billion in 2019
    EUR 23.4 billion in 2020
    EUR 23 billion in 2021
    EUR 28.5 billion in 2022*

The sources for the figures include the EU budget, the European Development Fund and the European Investment Bank.

* The overall public figure is calculated by using a new methodology, based on commitments for bilateral and disbursements of multilateral finance made in 2022. If the previous year’s methodology were used, the overall public finance contribution for 2022 would have been EUR 30.5 billion.