Morocco gets over $600m in finance over past decade but some countries in need have been missing out, report finds

Morocco and Mexico have both received over half a billion in finance (mostly in loans) from some of the world’s major climate funds, according to a new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

The report analysed a decade of money going into nine national and two international funds set up to tackle climate change. Of the $7.6bn in funding that the ODI looked at, half of it was going to just ten countries.

The chart below shows how much each country received in financing and how much of that was for mitigating the effects of climate change.

However, the figures also shows that many countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change are missing out on financing. Countries such as Namibia, El Salvador and Guatemala all received less than $5m each (fewer than 1/100th of what the top countries get).

Some of the projects benefitting from the funds included a massive increase in Mexico’s renewable energy capacity in a system previously powered by fossil fuels; the development of Morocco’s solar energy resources and Brazil reforesting 3,000 hectares of land.

Of the funds that they looked at, the UK pledged the most contributions of any country at $2.5bn, with the US giving $2.4bn.

ODI research fellow and report author, Smita Nakhooda said:

These start-up climate funds were pioneering in their approach, and a huge amount has been learnt from their experience. There are now too many small climate funding ‘pots’ with substantial overlap and finance is spread too thinly between them, creating an urgent need to learn from experience and improve the system. The lives of millions of people in poor countries affected by climate change depend on getting this right.

Next year will see the roll out of a new green climate fund, which has already raised almost $10bn in seven months. This is more than these other schemes raised in a decade.