Data wonβt be confirmed until 2025 and developing countries say the rich world must make up for earlier shortfalls from the target
There will be no confirmation that rich countries have met their $100 billion a year climate finance promise until 2025 at the earliest.
Thatβs according to ministers from Canada and Germany, the two nations tasked with drawing up the βdelivery planβ for belatedly meeting the pledge.
In an open letter, Canadaβs Steven Guilbeault and Germanyβs Jennifer Morgan, said on Friday that they were βconfident that the goal will be met this yearβ.
That would be three years after the target date of 2020, as promised by wealthy nations at climate talks in 2009.
But, the ministers warned, βdata on climate finance delivered in 2023 will not be available until 2025 due to data requirements and reporting processes in placeβ.
Climate finance failed to reach $100bn in 2020 (Photo: OECD)
Negotiators, campaigners and experts said the delay would damage trust between climate negotiators and questioned the legitimacy of rich countries climate finance figures.
Richard Klein is a senior research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute. He said developed countries were being βvery naive if they think they can get away with thisβ.
He added that trust between governments is already very low and this will only confirm what developing countries criticise and undermine developed countriesβ negotiating positions.
βYou canβt have [German leader Olaf] Scholz going to G20 saying that he expects climate action of all partners, and then do this,β he said.
βToo little, too lateβ
Alpha Kaloga is the African Groupβs lead negotiator on finance and loss and damage. He told Climate Home that βwe welcome the effortβ, but even if $100 billion was provided in 2023, there would still be shortfalls to make up for in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
βThe confidence shown by developed [countries] in term of fulfillment of the pledge does not match our understanding of the pledge,β he said.
Saleemul Huq, a Bangladeshi campaigner and adviser to the Cop28 presidency, told Climate Home that βthe fact that developed countries still cannot guarantee the delivery of the mythical $100bnβ¦ is simply the symptom of their lack of seriousness to deliver on their promisesβ.
Climate Action Network campaigner Harjeet Singh said even if the target was met it was βtoo little and too lateβ, as the βgenuine costs faced by developing nations run into trillions annuallyβ
Player and referee
Since 2015, rich countries have tasked the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with collecting this data.
Kaloga said this process is βnot transparent as it seems that [developed countries] are player and referee at the same timeβ. The OECD is funded by its member countries, which are mostly developed nations.
Kaloga also said that the OECDβs classification of climate finance was βdebatableβ as reports by Oxfam and others have βrevealed that much of the reported amount is overestimatedβ.
Oxfam said in June that the real value of rich countries climate finance in 2020 was just $24.5 billion. They got the official $83 billion figure by overstating climate benefits and taking loans at their face value, Oxfam said.
βIf developed countries are serious about the statement, they should set an inclusive task force to track and estimate the support provided and received,β Kaloga said.
Reporting delays
The OECDβs figures are published about 18 months after the relevant yearβs end.
Joe Thwaites, a senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the delay is caused by some developed countries being βvery slow in reporting their dataβ.
βEU member states report their climate finance for a given year less than a year later, so itβs clearly possible,β he added.
The delay means governments will go into Cop28 and Cop29 without assurance that the goal has been met, doing nothing to ease tensions between developed and developing countries.
Developing countries have criticised rich nationsβ failure to meet the target. Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber said the βdismal failureβ had been βholding upβ progress in the negotiations.
Governments are now negotiating a post-2025 climate finance goal to succeed the $100 billion target. This new target is scheduled to be finalised in 2024.

The US is responsible for the vast majority of the shortfall (Photo credit: ODI)
Previous promises
Rich nations have expressed similar confidence at meeting the target before.
In 2016, the UK and Australia had a similar role to that which Germany and Canada have now.
In their 2016 βroadmapβ, they said they were βconfidentβ it would be met by 2020 but in reality rich nations mobilised just $83.3 billion that year.
The OECD is expected to release figures for 2021 before Cop28 in November, which is not expected to narrow the gap to $100 billion completely.
According to research from the ODI think tank, the US is responsible for the vast majority of the shortfall to $100 billion.