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- Climate change in brief
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- Climate finance
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Additional tools
The European Union has long been the world's leading provider of climate finance, through official development assistance (ODA). Climate issues have become increasingly integrated into broader development strategies. Since 2002 the EU has steadily increased climate finance for developing countries, by using traditional grant funding to leverage additional private sector contributions and loans from European financial institutions.
European Commission stepping up climate finance
The European Commission alone has provided €3.3 billion in climate finance through traditional ODA since 2002. This support has to a large extent been focused on energy (supporting both renewable and efficiency measures), forestry, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction.
Significant contributions from EU Member States must be added to this figure, as well as the €4.68 billion in fast start finance provided by the Member States and the European Commission.
More information about concrete climate-change related projects in different countries and sectors supported by the European Commission can be found in the brochure "Supporting a climate for change" 
[2.86 MB] or at the climate change for a better development page of the Europaid website.
Using specific climate vehicles
In recent years, three specific vehicles have been set up by the European Commission to enhance climate financing and leverage additional loans by European financial institutions and private sector contributions. A number of EU Member States are also contributing to these initiatives. Pooling more than €1.5 billion in grants from the EU budget and EU Member States, it is estimated that these vehicles will leverage around €14 billion in climate finance by the end of 2013:
- The Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) provides financial support and technical assistance to Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States to develop adaptation and mitigation strategies and projects. From 2008 to 2011, the GCCA has committed and engaged over €200 million in support of 31 programmes across the world. An additional 11 countries and regions are expected to benefit from the initiative in 2012-2013. Through the GCCA the EU is also organising regional workshops on mainstreaming climate change into national development planning and budgeting, and has already trained over 180 senior officials from ministries of finance, planning and environment in developing countries over the past two years.
- The Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) provides risk capital for small and medium scale investments in sustainable energy in developing countries, with an emphasis on countries in the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) group of countries. So far, the European Commission, Germany and Norway have provided more than €108 million in grants. This amount is topped up by private sector contributions; the current combined total value of GEEREF is €250 million.
- Specific Climate Change Windows have been set up to enhance climate finance in four regional investment facilities: the Neighbourhood Investment Fund (NIF), the EU Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund (EUAITF), the Latin America Investment Facility (LAIF), the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) and the Investment Facility for Central Asia (IFCA).
Topped up by EIB loans
The European Investment Bank is among the world's largest lenders for climate action: in 2010, the Bank invested €21 billion in climate action, around a third of its total lending volume, of which €2 billion outside the EU. In October 2011 a new mandate was approved on EIB lending outside the EU which provides for an extra €2 bn of lending for climate action over the years 2007-2013.