Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
The Council of the European Union announced in Brussels that in 2023, the European Union and its 27 Member States contributed €28.6 billion in climate finance from public sources and mobilized an additional €7.2 billion in private finance to support developing countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the effects of climate change.
The Council published the figures, in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29), which will be held from 11 to 22 November in Baku, Azerbaijan. The figures are based on the reporting rules for climate finance in the EU set out in the Governance Regulation.
According to data collected by the European Commission, almost half of public climate finance for developing countries was directed to climate adaptation or to cross-cutting action (which includes both climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives). Grant-based financing represents a large share (around 50%) of the overall contribution of the European Union and Member States. At the same time, the EU is actively seeking to expand the scope and impact of financial sources and instruments and to mobilise more private finance, all of which are key tools to support international climate action. In this way, the EU will continue to help developing countries implement the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.

The figures for 2023 underline the strong efforts of the EU and its Member States to fulfil their international climate finance commitments, in particular towards the collective target of developed countries to mobilise €100 billion per year, which applies until 2025.

The €28.6 billion in climate finance from public budgets includes €3.2 billion from the EU budget, including from the European Sustainable Development Fund Plus, and €2.6 billion from the European Investment Bank. The overall figure is calculated on the basis of bilateral financing commitments and multilateral disbursements reported for the calendar year 2023. The figure of €7.2 billion relates to 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 used to mobilise this private financial support.