On Friday, the French Treasury published the 2023 figures for “climate financing from France, down 5% year-on-year but still among the highest in the world, three days away of COP29 in Baku (Azerbaijan). In 2023, France provided 7.2 billion euros to projects with positive spin-offs for the planet in developing countries, including 2.8 billion dedicated to adaptation to climate change, according to the Bercy press release. These sums, which are generally channeled through the French Development Agency (AFD), take the form of loans (79%) and grants (15%). The country had disbursed some 7.6 billion euros by 2022, some 400 million more than in 2023.

“We must collectively do better to mobilize all sources and instruments of financing and involve the private sector more in a partnership approach that is essential to achieving our climate goals.”said Antoine Armand, Minister of the Economy. Despite the decline, these figures place France among the leading contributors to international climate finance. Within the European Union, France is the second-largest contributor behind Germany, accounting for 31% of European climate finance provided in 2023, according to the press release.

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115.9 billion dollars recorded by the OECD

“France is thus considered to be one of the countries most clearly exceeding its “fair share” of the target set at COP15 in 2009, where developed countries collectively committed to mobilizing $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries until 2025.”adds the press release. This global target was exceeded for the first time in 2022, with $115.9 billion recorded by the OECD. At COP29 in Baku, France and the European Union will be seeking a more ambitious post-2025 target.

One of the challenges of the negotiations will be to broaden the base of “contributors – these rich countries that have also emitted a lot of greenhouse gases because of their past growth – to China, South Korea and the Gulf States. “In particular, we would like all countries with the financial capacity to do so to contribute in order to increase funding.”commented the French Minister for Ecological Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.