Today the six large multilateral development banks (MDBs) published their latest Joint Report on MDB Climate Finance and announced that they had delivered US$ 28 billion in climate finance in 2014. This is the highest volume reported since the MDBs started tracking their climate finance flows under harmonised principles and since launching the annual climate finance report in 2011.
The MDBs have now passed an historic milestone – providing more than US$ 100 billion in climate finance since 2011. These results reflect the very strong and effective cooperation among all of the MDBs.
The EBRD’s role in the MDP partnership
We are particularly proud of the role that the EBRD plays in the MDB partnership.
The Bank’s climate finance commitments of slightly more than US$ 4 billion in 2014 account for about 14 per cent of the MDB climate finance flows.
The EBRD’s share of climate finance in its own annual business volume is the highest among the MDBs. In 2014, it reached a record level of 34 per cent.
60 per cent of the Bank’s climate finance volume was dedicated to private sector projects, which secures the EBRD’s place among the leading MDBs in delivering private sector climate finance. In 2014, our climate adaptation volume reached almost US$ 200 million of which US$ 57 million was used to fund private sector projects.
We are by far the leading MDB when it comes to private sector climate adaptation.
The importance of tracking climate finance
The MDBs as a group are themselves playing an increasingly important role in the global response to the challenge of climate change. Their initiative of harmonising climate finance tracking methodologies and reporting jointly their own is making a real difference. Back in 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilising US$ 100 billion per year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources, including public and private, bilateral and multilateral. .
Being able to capture these financial flows in a comparable way is a prerequisite for monitoring whether the world is on the right track. The MDBs are taking the lead in making their climate finance flows comparable and transparent.
Going forward
In the last four years the MDBs have taken a leading role in defining climate finance and reporting financial flows. The group is now seeking ways of expanding the scope of climate finance reporting by sharing knowledge and exploring joint reporting initiatives with other groups such as the International Development Finance Club (IDFC), a group of national and regional development banks.
However, the main focus of the MDB partnership remains scaling up climate finance while delivering concrete results across a large number of countries – a commitment that becomes ever more relevant as we approach COP21 climate conference in Paris at the end of this year.