The Crisis of Climate and Development Finance

On May 22, 2025, CGD senior fellow Charles Kenny delivered remarks at the Oxford Martin School, where he is a visiting fellow. His speech, “The Crisis of Climate and Development Finance," focused on the significant gap that exists between pledged and delivered climate finance and proposed a dual financing approach.

From the speech:

We were never going to get to trillions, in part because the scenarios for delivery unrealistically assumed the private sector would provide an immense amount of the cash... But the more immediate problem is that real financing for development and climate adaptation is actually falling. One reason is that mitigation financing is eating up development finance …

Read the full speech here.