This annex presents the climate finance data sources used and the main methodological issues encountered in the process of compiling, collating, and analysing such data. The annex first addresses methodological aspects for each of the four components outlined in Table A B.1 below and, subsequently, offers some cross-cutting considerations.
Climate Finance Provided and Mobilised by Developed Countries in 2013-18
Climate Finance and the USD 100 Billion Goal
Note: Bilateral providers include: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, European Union (European Commission and European Development Fund), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States. Multilateral development banks include: African Development Bank (AfDB), African Development Fund (AfDF), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), IDB Invest, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG). Multilateral climate funds include: Adaptation Fund, Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), Green Climate Fund (GCF), Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Nordic Development Fund (NDF). Other multilateral bodies include: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Montreal Protocol, United Nations Programmes, Specialised Agencies and Funds, e.g. International Fund for Agriculture Development, (IFAD), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and other. Providers of climate-related export credits include: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and United States. Mobilised private includes: private finance mobilised by bilateral and multilateral providers listed above.
The bilateral climate finance component includes annual financial commitments (or sometimes disbursements) for 2013-2018 from developed countries to developing countries’ governments, NGOs and civil society, research institutes, private sector, networks and public-private partnerships operating in developing countries. Finance listed as “bilateral climate finance” excludes all forms of export credit financing to avoid any double counting with the separate export credit component. It also excludes any coal-related financing. With the exception of the United States, bilateral climate finance data also exclude developmental guarantees, which are accounted separately for their mobilisation effect under the mobilised private finance component.
Data sources and geographical coverage
2018 bilateral climate finance data are in principle sourced from Table 7(b) of the Common Tabular Format (CTF) tables1 that Annex I Parties have submitted to the UNFCCC to accompany their Fourth Biennial Report (BR) to the UNFCCC. According to the UNFCCC guidelines for the preparation of BRs, only Annex II Parties2 are required to biennially report information on annual levels of financial support provided using a CTF (UNFCCC, 2012[20]). The bilateral climate finance component in this report includes 2013-2018 financial flows, as reported by Annex II Parties and by a number of other Annex I Parties.3 The Fourth BRs and the accompanying CTFs were submitted to the UNFCCC in 2020 and include, inter alia, climate finance data for the biennium 2017-2018. As of September 2020, all Annex II Parties except for Iceland and the United States have submitted a Fourth BR and its accompanying CTFs to the UNFCCC. Therefore, bilateral climate finance from the United States and Iceland for 2018 was estimated as the average of the respective 2016/2017 contributions. Bilateral climate finance data for 2013-2017 reflect figures presented in (OECD, 2019[1]) and (OECD, 2015[2]), and have not been updated or revised for the purpose of this report. In particular, data for 2014 and 2017 were sourced from countries in advance of their official reporting to the UNFCCC based on bilateral exchanges between the OECD and donor Parties. Post‑checks, however, demonstrated only marginal variations with the final data reported to the UNFCCC.
Through Table 7(b) of the CTFs, countries report information on the provision of public financial support through bilateral, regional, and other channels. When reporting information on bilateral climate finance flows using table 7(b) of the CTF, countries are to provide information on (i) Recipient country/region/project/programme, (ii) Climate-specific amount, (iii) Status, (iv) Funding source, (v) Financial instrument, (vi) Type of support and (vii) Sector. The set of CTFs submitted by each country is made publicly available on the UNFCCC website as MS Excel files (.xlsx). The BRs and the documentation boxes that accompany the CTFs allow countries to report further information on methodologies and definitions adopted by countries to estimate financial flows, notably to explain how they define funds as climate-specific.
Methodological considerations
While Annex II countries are required to report bilateral climate finance flows to the UNFCCC using a common format (that is, Table 7(b) of the CTFs), working in-depth with the data reported as done for the present report makes it possible to identify significant inconsistencies in terms of methodologies, categorisations, and definitions adopted across countries. This is because UNFCCC reporting guidelines provide some leeway in terms of climate finance reporting. Most OECD DAC members base their reporting to the UNFCCC on the climate-related development finance data they report to the OECD DAC. Yet, bilateral climate finance data reported to the UNFCCC are neither as detailed (fewer data fields) nor as standardised as data reported to the OECD DAC statistical system.
It is observed that climate finance reporting to the UNFCCC varies across countries in three main areas that have a significant impact on the amount reported:
Currency conversion: The figures presented in this report are based on reporting by countries in USD, when available. Exchange rates used to estimate amounts in USD vary across countries. Most countries use the “Annual Average Dollar Exchange Rates for DAC Members” for reporting their climate finance data in USD. Where that was not the case, the relative difference between amounts in USD, as reported by countries and conversion based on the “Annual Average Dollar Exchange Rates for DAC Members,” showed only minor variance. Where countries provided climate finance in another currency (Table 7(b) of the CTFs allows countries to report bilateral climate finance in USD and/or in the national currency), the amount was converted using the “Annual Average Dollar Exchange Rates for DAC Members” (Figure A B.1).
Commitment and disbursement: Countries may report either financial commitments or disbursements to the UNFCC. Most choose to report either on “disbursed” or on “committed” climate finance. However, a limited number of countries combine both, depending on the financial instrument. As a result, figures of bilateral climate finance presented in this report are based on a combination of commitment and disbursement data. Exchange of information with countries and ad-hoc requests for further clarification has ensured that double counting has been avoided for countries that reported both. Overall, disbursement data almost exclusively relate to grants.
Climate-specific amounts: Table 7(b) of the CTFs requires countries to report information on the climate-specific amount of a contribution; that is the share of a contribution that targets climate change specifically. To calculate the climate-specific component of a contribution, most countries apply a coefficient to scale down the total value of a project, for which climate change is not the only objective. Countries adopt different approaches to calculate the climate-specific amount of a contribution. A limited number of countries currently undertake ad-hoc assessments for each project, whereas a number of countries use a range of fixed coefficients (e.g., 30%, 40%, 100%) that apply by default depending on whether climate change was the only, primary, or secondary objective pursued by the project. In order to enhance transparency on climate-related development finance reported to the UNFCCC by DAC members, the OECD DAC conducted a voluntary survey in 2018 and 2020. Based on responses received by 19 out of 30 DAC members, the results of the 2020 survey (forthcoming) show that in most cases, countries apply fixed coefficients to any activity marked principal or significant with the Rio markers on climate change.
Data harmonisation and quality checks
The UNFCCC guidelines for the reporting of financial information by Parties included in Annex I to the Convention (decision 9/CP.21) (UNFCCC, 2015[21]), and the guiding footnotes to table 7(b) of the CTFs provide limited guidance to countries on how to fill in the CTFs. Each reporting parameter of table 7(b) includes a list of standardised categorisations (labels) that Annex I countries can use to report on different aspects of a contribution.
However, data labels and descriptions used vary significantly across countries, particularly for recipients and sectors. For the purpose of this report, and to allow for meaningful aggregation and analysis of data, bilateral climate finance data included by Annex I countries in the relevant CTFs had to be harmonised and re-coded into a set of defined categorisations. These encompass:
Status: Decision 9/CP.21 aligned the labels of the reporting parameter “status” of support to other existing international methodologies (UNFCCC, 2015[21]). Accordingly, since 2015, countries are to report contributions as “committed” and “disbursed”. No variance across countries was observed in the use of labels, and no additional harmonisation work was needed.
Funding source: Labels made available by table 7(b) include: ODA, OOF, Other. Limited variance in the use of these labels was observed across countries. When countries report a contribution as a combination of ODA and OOF, or as “other”, exchange of information took place with donor countries to clarify the source.
Financial instrument: Financial instrument labels made available by table 7(b) were: grant, concessional loan, non-concessional loan, equity, and other. A number of countries used sub-variants of these categorisations, e.g. “syndicated loan”, “interest subsidy”, etc. Financial instruments have been re-coded according to the categorisation of loans, grants, equity, export credits, and development guarantees.4 When countries reported the financial instrument of a contribution as “other”, exchange of information took place with donor countries to clarify the financial instrument.
Type of finance: Type of finance categorisations made available by table 7(b) include: mitigation, adaptation, cross-cutting. No variance across countries was observed in the labels used, and no additional harmonisation work was needed.
Sectors: Type of sectoral categorisations made available by table 7(b) include: energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry, water and sanitation, cross-cutting, other. To facilitate comparability with other climate finance components included in this report, sectors were re-coded to the highest level of granularity available so as to correspond to standardised DAC sectoral classification. Great variation in the use of sectoral labels was observed. Some countries report sectors using the DAC purpose codes alone (e.g. “232”), other countries report jointly the DAC purpose code and the sectoral category (e.g. “232 – Energy generation, renewable sources”), and other countries report using the sectoral labels that are prompted by the CTFs (e.g. “Energy). For 2018 data alone, countries used 281 different sectoral definitions, which were subsequently re-coded into 83 DAC sectors.
Recipients: The CTF reporting field “recipient country/region/project/programme” does not include any standardised labels for countries to use. Because of the broad reporting scope of this reporting parameter, great variance is observed across countries in terms of reporting format, level of detail and wording. Furthermore, different countries use different spellings or languages to indicate the same recipient country. For example, at least 19 different spellings were observed to indicate the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As a result, the harmonisation of recipients for 2018 data alone implied the re-coding of virtually all recipients based on a combination of keyword searches and, where needed, manual re-coding. Recipient countries were re-coded as regions or sub-regions when multiple countries belonging to the same geographical area were listed for a single contribution.
For a number of observations, it was not possible to harmonise and re-code sectors and recipients. The recipient country and/or sector of these contributions were marked as “Unspecified” under either category. This was the case for a number of contributions, for which activity-level data were not available. For example, a number of contributions were marked as being directed to a list of (specified) multiple countries belonging to different geographical areas and/or sectors. In such cases, and as it was not specified by countries, it was not possible to assess what shares of the contribution would target each recipient/sector.
To ensure data quality, consistency and comparability, information exchanges took place throughout the process between the OECD and individual donor countries, e.g., to identify and exclude coal-related financing, or to identify and exclude delegated grants from the GCF to avoid double counting with the multilateral outflow component. One country has included in its table 7(b) figures for climate finance mobilised. These were excluded to avoid double counting with the mobilised climate finance component.
Finally, a number of countries include earmarked (i.e., multi-bilateral) contributions to UN agencies, NGOs, and IGOs in table 7(b) of the CTF. As there are no commonly-agreed UNFCCC guidelines on where to report on multi-bilateral contributions in the CTFs, where these contributions were reported in table 7(b), they have been included in the bilateral climate finance figures. For these contributions, the recipients were marked as “global/unallocated”.
Potential for facilitating and improving data analysis
While standardised reporting across countries of status and type of finance, financial instruments and funding source has significantly improved over time, a number of challenges related to the reporting of recipients and sectors continue hindering data analysis. To enhance the transparency of reporting and to facilitate data analysis, as well as to limit the risk of errors, it would be helpful if countries were to report information on bilateral climate finance in a format that could be easily read and processed by a computer (“machine-readable”), limiting the need for manual work in the context of data harmonisation. For this purpose, as analysed in more depth by the OECD/IEA Climate Change Expert Group (Falduto and Ellis, 2019[22]), it would be useful to ensure that:
Data are reported, to the extent possible, according to standardised labels prompted by the CTFs.
Recipient countries and/or regions are indicated in a dedicated data field, separately from the project and programme title. Given that this reporting option is not possible within current CTFs, including the name of a country at the beginning of a text string (e.g. in the “Recipient country/region/project/programme” field) would facilitate the identification and isolation of the recipient for data analysis purposes.
Data are reported, wherever applicable, at the activity-level. This implies avoiding reporting contributions aggregated per, e.g., disbursing agency.
The multilateral public climate component covers climate-related commitments by multilateral development banks (MDBs), multilateral climate funds, as well as other multilateral organisations, sourced from their core resources (sometimes referred to as ordinary capital), and subsequently attributed to developed countries. Outflows from trust funds and special-purpose programmes administered by multilateral organisations are not included in the multilateral public component. Inflows to such funds and programmes are considered as provider countries’ bilateral climate finance and are, in principle, reported in Table 7(b) of the CTF tables submitted to the UNFCCC. Where applicable, such inflows to special-purpose funds and programmes are presented under the “bilateral public” finance component. There are currently no exhaustive and internationally standardised project-level data available on the outflows (including climate‑related) from trust funds and similar vehicles managed by multilateral organisations. This situation is likely to improve in the coming years with new international statistical efforts, such as the new measure Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) (OECD TOSSD, 2020[23]). In addition, the figures also include contributions by developed countries (inflows) to multilateral organisations, for which standardised climate finance outflow data are unavailable at present; this is particularly the case for specialised UN agencies, such as UNDP or UN Environment.
The multilateral public climate component includes all modalities and financial instruments that constitute long-term financial flows. This includes grants, equity investments, mezzanine/hybrid finance and debt instrument with a maturity of over one year. Short-term debt operations (notably short-term trade finance operations) are excluded. To avoid double counting across individual finance components, multilateral guarantees and other unfunded contingent liabilities are presented under the component on private finance mobilised in case they cover private finance. They are excluded in case they cover public finance.
Data sources and geographical coverage
Data on multilateral core budget outflows are sourced from the standardised activity-level data on development finance collected by the OECD DAC. The geographic coverage of the multilateral outflow data is limited to countries and territories included on the DAC List of ODA Recipients (OECD, 2020[14]). As illustrated in Annex 3, the DAC List of ODA Recipients significantly overlaps but is not identical to the list of non-Annex I Parties to the UNFCCC. However, a comparison of the OECD DAC data coverage with data available on other platforms, such as the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI), revealed that only negligible amounts of climate finance are left out due to the geographic inconsistency of the DAC and non‑Annex I lists. Moreover, concerning multilateral agencies for which no project-level outflow data are available, the analysis uses inflows included by Annex I Parties in table 7(a) of the Biennial Reports to the UNFCCC.
Multilateral outflows reported to OECD DAC statistics include a range of statistical categories beyond climate change mitigation and adaptation. These include standardised information on, for instance, recipients, sectors, instruments, and channels of delivery and modalities (e.g. projects versus technical assistance). Such standardised data were extensively used in this report to conduct disaggregated analyses. On the other hand, the only information available for core contributions to multilateral organisations reported according to the BR’s reporting guidelines in table 7(a) of the CTFs was the climate focus.
Methodological considerations
Reporting to the OECD DAC on multilateral outflows is based on statistical data fields and underlying definitional standards. This results in a dataset that is more coherent than for bilateral climate finance reported to the UNFCCC, notably in terms of point of measurement (all commitment based), currency conversion and sectoral classifications. However, in terms of tracking climate finance, multilateral organisations currently report to the OECD DAC statistical system based on two different methods:
The Rio markers methodology, which is designed to identify activities that mainstream the objectives of the UNFCCC into development co-operation (OECD DAC, 2016[10]). Used initially by DAC members only, most multilateral climate funds (e.g. Adaptation Fund, GCF, GEF, NDF) based their climate-related reporting for the years covered by this report on the DAC Rio markers method. This approach accounts for the full face value of activities assessed as having climate change mitigation and/or adaptation as their principal (primary) or significant (secondary) objective, as opposed to activities assessed as not targeting the UNFCCC objectives and unscreened activities.
The MDB methodologies for tracking climate change adaptation and mitigation finance (MDBs, 2020[4]). While these two MDB approaches fundamentally differ in nature, they are intended to deliver quantified indications of the extent to which individual activities contribute to or promote adaptation and/or mitigation (multilateral climate components). The MDB method on adaptation does so by capturing the incremental cost of adaptation activities. The MDB method for tracking mitigation finance is based on a “positive” list of activities in sectors that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are compatible with low-emission development.
A key methodological point behind the multilateral public climate finance figures is considering only the share of multilateral climate commitments attributable to developed countries. Multilateral institutions are typically funded or capitalised by core contributions from both developed and developing countries. Institutions that operate with a financial business model use these contributions as a basis for raising finance from the capital markets. A specific methodology is, therefore, needed to calculate, for each institution, the share of its outflows attributable to developed countries, with the remainder being attributable to developing countries. Such calculation takes into account the concessional and non‑concessional nature of multilateral finance, most recent and cumulative replenishment participations by individual countries, as well as, where applicable, the organisations’ capacity to raise funds from the capital markets (TWG, 2015[24]). The resulting attribution shares can be found in Table A B.2. These attribution percentages are also applied to the amounts mobilised from the private sector by the multilateral agencies’ interventions.5
Notes: The 2015 percentages apply to 2013, 2014 and 2015 multilateral climate finance outflow data. The 2018 percentages apply to 2016, 2017 and 2018 data. The merger of the AsDB ordinary capital resources (OCR) balance sheet with the lending operations of the AsDF became effective at the start of 2017. Climate finance outflows for the GCF, the IDB Invest (previously Inter-American Investment Corporation; IIC) and the AIIB were first recorded in OECD DAC statistics in 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. Climate finance outflows from IFAD, CEB and CAF were first included in the present figures in 2018 (figures for previous years include developed countries’ inflows to IFAD and did not cover CAF and CEB altogether).
Source: OECD calculations based on annual reports and websites of each of the listed institutions; see also (OECD, 2019[19]) and (TWG, 2015[24]).
Potential for facilitating and improving data analysis
In principle, data reported by multilateral organisations to the OECD DAC, including on climate, are collected and made publicly available at the activity-level. However, the IFC raised confidentiality concerns regarding its 2018 climate commitment data. Tailor-made legal and technical solutions were required to overcome these constraints, enabling the IFC to share these data with the OECD. Information on some projects were, nevertheless, provided as aggregates due to their strictly confidential nature. These aggregates accounted for 15% of the total IFC climate commitments in 2018. Similarly, IDB Invest has been providing anonymised activity-level data on its outflow commitments and the multilateral climate components. Discussions with IFC and IDB Invest were on-going at the time of writing of this report, to explore ways to lift some of these restrictions, which prevent the OECD from conducting basic data quality assurance work.
More generally, further transparency on MDB climate finance data would benefit the international community. While MDBs report their outflows to the OECD based on DAC statistical standards, they have also since 2013 published their climate finance numbers in dedicated annual joint MDB reports (MDBs, 2020[4]). For most of the MDBs, the accounting basis used to develop the joint MDB reports is different from that of the OECD DAC, e.g. in terms of point of measurement, geographical scope, or instrument coverage. The joint MDB reports are intended to communicate on MDBs’ performance to the shareholders, rather than provide international statistics relevant to UNFCCC discussions. Accordingly, MDBs currently do not make their activity-level datasets that underpin the joint MDB reports publicly available, which makes it challenging to conduct comparisons and partial reconciliation with the data recorded in the OECD DAC database. Overall, sharing transparent and granular data to the OECD is critical for harmonisation and comparability purposes.
Officially-supported export credits are the third component included in the report. Although extended primarily to support national export and facilitate international trade, export credits can also contribute to climate action by supporting transactions for climate-related sectors and projects with climate mitigation or adaptation benefits. Data on climate-related export credits originate from two sources:
The vast majority of the data are sourced from the OECD Export Credit Group’s (ECG) database on officially-supported export credits, which contains activity-level transaction data reported by official export credit agencies (ECAs). The ECG statistics includes two main types of export credit transactions: loans extended directly by ECAs and loan guaranteed (or insurances) by ECAs. Both types are accounted for on their face value and on a gross basis. Importantly, the ECG database only covers export credits with a repayment term of two years or more that were provided in conformity with the Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits (OECD, 2020[25]). For the purpose of this report, only export credit data reported as explicitly targeting renewable energy, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and water projects were included. In practice, such data covers almost only renewable energy-related transactions.
Some countries provide export support outside of that reported under the aforementioned Arrangement, i.e. beyond the ECG database. Six countries reported such complementary data: Canada, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United States. These countries either provided one-off data inputs either directly to the OECD for the purpose of this report or by including export credits in their biennial climate finance reporting to the UNFCCC. The reported data mainly related to renewable energy, with only a few transactions in the water and sanitation, and transport sectors. Where relevant, export credit transactions supporting coal-related activities were excluded.
To avoid double counting across these data sources, all export credit data that were made available to the authors of this report were carefully reviewed, cross-checked and netted out. For example, export-credit activities reported by countries to the UNFCCC were excluded from the bilateral climate finance component and included in the export credit one if not already captured by the OECD export credit database. In terms of general methodological considerations, export credit data are collected on a commitment basis. Furthermore, data sourced from the ECG database are converted to USD using monthly average exchange rates relating to the monthly commitment.
Data source and coverage
Under a high-level mandate from ministers, the OECD DAC has developed an international standard for measuring the amounts mobilised from the private sector by official development finance interventions, including for climate. Work has been carried out jointly with the OECD-led Research Collaborative on Tracking Finance for Climate Action, as well as in close collaboration with experts from bilateral development finance institutions, aid agencies and ministries, as well as the MDBs and other multilateral organisations. Based on multiple years and successive rounds of research, stakeholder consultations, surveys, methodological developments, and implementation, the methodology is considered comprehensive and, since 2017, has been fully implemented in the regular CRS data collection. The Working Party on Development Finance Statistics (WP-STAT) will continue to fine-tune the methodology where needed (e.g. on how to account for the role of technical assistance in mobilisation schemes).
The scope of the OECD DAC methodology for measuring the amounts mobilised from the private sector covers the main mechanisms used by development finance providers, including syndicated loans, guarantees, credit lines, direct investment in companies or special purpose vehicles (SPVs), shares in collective investment vehicles (CIVs) and simple co-financing arrangements. In order to avoid double-counting at the international level when multiple official financiers invest in the same project or vehicle together with the private sector, the amounts mobilised from the private sector are attributed following an instrument-specific approach in order to take into account the role (e.g. arranger of syndications) and position (investment seniority) played by each official actor. In addition, as a matter of principle, the mobilisation methods take into account the role played by all official actors involved, including both international and domestic public agencies (e.g. national development banks).
Consistently with data coverage that underpinned previous OECD figures of private climate finance mobilised in 2016 and 2017 (OECD, 2019[1]), almost all DAC members and multilateral agencies that work with the private sector report their mobilisation data to OECD DAC. The core reporting fields in this context include (1) the mechanism used, (2) the origin of funds mobilised and (3) the amounts mobilised from the private sector. These statistical collections do not include the identity of private financiers mobilised nor the terms and conditions of the finance they extended. In principle, these data are shared as part of annual data reporting by these providers in the context of the more general methodological framework agreed by the DAC Working Party on Development Finance Statistics (WP-STAT).
Source: OECD Development Assistance Committee statistics as well as complementary reporting to the OECD.
Two countries (Italy and Japan) have provided data on their private mobilisation for specific years on an ad-hoc basis. Switzerland also included some mobilisation figures in its Fourth Biennial Reports to the UNFCCC. Moreover:
IFC could only share its private mobilisation data for 2017 through a physical data secure room due to confidentiality constraints. The context and limitations of this data sharing modality are thoroughly described in the previous edition of this report (OECD, 2019[1]). Breakdowns were obtained by year, financing mechanism, climate focus, and main region group (i.e. Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania). Data on sectoral distribution were not retrieved. For 2018, IFC submitted its mobilisation data to the OECD under a data-sharing agreement.
IDB Invest and AIIB could not share data on private finance mobilised for 2018 due to confidentiality and/or internal capacity reasons. At the time of writing this report, discussions were on-going with IDB Invest on a data-sharing agreement for their future reporting on mobilisation. To fill in this statistical gap, the private climate finance mobilised by IDB Invest and AIIB was estimated by the authors using publicly available sources, including the institutions’ annual reports and individual project documentation available in the public domain.
Methodological considerations
Data on private climate mobilisation collected by the DAC or estimated for the purpose of this report are converted to USD using the nominal annual average exchange rates. These are presented in Table A C.4.
The point of measurement for private finance mobilisation is, in general, at the time when the information becomes available to all co-financiers in individual projects (e.g. commitments or financial closure). While the financing structure of syndicated loans is typically known at the commitment stage, the mobilisation effect of shares in CIVs and direct investment in companies can stretch over a certain period of time, which sometimes requires reporting on a disbursement or ex-post basis.
Similarly to the multilateral public finance, private climate finance mobilised by multilateral providers only reflects the shares attributed to developed countries (see Table A B.2). The climate relevance of mobilised private finance is reported by providers to the OECD DAC based on either the DAC Rio marker or the MDB methodologies. The extent to which private finance mobilised contributes to climate change mitigation and/or adaptation is determined by the climate relevance or percentage of the official finance intervention mobilising private finance. For example, if an MDB loan with a mitigation component of 75% mobilises private finance, this same percentage is applied to the private amount mobilised. Amounts of private finance mobilised tagged for climate based on Rio markers are accounted for at their face value.
Potential for facilitating and improving data analysis
DAC members and the multilateral community have been sharing data on their private mobilisation with the OECD at the project level since the inception of this work in 2015, following the OECD DAC statistical standards and definitions for comparability purposes. These data were primarily used for various analytical outputs of the OECD, presenting highly aggregated trends. To respond to increasing needs for transparency in the development and climate finance communities, in 2018, DAC members agreed on data disclosure rules that allow for using those data by a broader range of stakeholders.
In recent years, however, some MDBs indicated that they face data confidentiality constraints when reporting to the OECD on amounts mobilised from the private sector, including for climate action. A working group involving MDBs, DAC members, and the OECD Secretariat was launched in 2019 to address these issues and explore solutions for the MDBs to continue providing these data to the OECD. The objective of the group is to agree on data disclosure rules for the MDBs’ mobilisation data while preserving the integrity of the OECD DAC statistical system and meeting information needs by countries, the private sector, and the civil society. Pending the agreement and implementation of such solutions, interim individual data sharing and non-disclosure agreements had to be signed with some MDBs for the 2018 data collection on mobilisation, namely the AsDB, EBRD, EIB and IFC.
There were significant exchange rate fluctuations over 2013-18, with a consequent effect on the total climate finance figures. This is particularly relevant for the conversion of the Euro, Japanese Yen, and the Pound Sterling, which are used by the largest climate finance providers. Over 2013-18, these three currencies showed exchange rate fluctuations of over 20% each, taking 2013 as a basis year (Figure A B.1).
Source: (OECD, 2018[26]).
For further reference, Table A C.4 presents the annual conversion rates vis-à-vis the United States dollar used in the context of the DAC statistics and the present report.
Note: These are nominal annual average exchange rates, i.e. the amount of a given currency needed to purchase 1 USD, calculated as an average of daily rates during a given calendar year.
← 1. These were agreed at COP18 (decision 19/CP.18) and further revised at COP21 (decision 9/CP.21) (UNFCCC, 2012; UNFCCC, 2015).
← 2. Annex II Parties consist of the OECD members of Annex I, with the exclusion of the economies in transition (EIT). Annex II Parties are listed in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, amended by decision 26/CP.7: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
← 3. Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia.
← 4. One country has reported, for a number of concessional loans, the grant equivalent value of the contribution and the remaining part of the loan. For the purpose of this report, the instrument “grant equivalent” has been re-coded as “loan”, as figures are based on gross flows, i.e. the face value, of climate finance.
← 5. The attribution share for the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) is only applied on the amounts mobilised from the private sector by this organisation, as guarantees are not accounted for in the multilateral public climate finance component. Similarly, the attribution share for the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) is only used in the context of the private climate finance mobilised, since PIDG has been reporting to the OECD DAC on the amounts mobilised from the private sector only.