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Towards a stronger shared climate and development finance agenda: what role for the FfD4?

published on blogs.idos-research.de, 08.05.2025

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The 4th International Conference on Financing for Development comes at a critical moment for climate and development finance. Despite progress—such as increased climate funding over the past years, the establishment of the Loss and Damage fund, and the inclusion of climate targets in the World Bank’s mission—important challenges persist and remain unresolved. The negotiations on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG) under the UNFCCC last year presented a crucial opportunity to lay the foundation for a future looking framework—one that strengthens resource allocation, access, efficiency, and transparency in international public climate finance. However, challenging and politically charged negotiations in Baku revealed deep divisions: while many argued for an ambitious scale-up to the trillions, developed and developing countries clashed over what was both realistic and sufficient. Ultimately, the decision to triple the previous target to USD 300 billion per year by 2035—sourced from public, multilateral, and private contributions—has been criticized by developing nations, especially given that the NCQG falls short in addressing some critical quality criteria for climate finance such as concrete targets for grant-based finance or climate access targets. More recently, the IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings showed that climate issues are at risk of being sidelined due to pressure from the new Trump administration. Now many eyes are turning to the conference in Seville for a new impetus for the climate finance agenda.

About the IDOS authors

Koch, Svea

Social Science

Aleksandrova, Mariya

Climate risk governance

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Berensmann, Kathrin

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Brandi, Clara

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Dippel, Beatrice

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Donnelly, Aiveen

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Ekoh, Susan S.

Environmental Research 

Fasold, Maximilian

Political Economy 

Fuhrmann-Riebel, Hanna

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Goedeking, Nicholas

Comparative Political Economy 

Hagenström, Paul

International Relations 

Hilbrich, Sören

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Kativu, Saymore Ngonidzashe

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Lehmann, Ina

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Malerba, Daniele

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Mathis, Okka Lou

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Mchowa, Chifundo

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Never, Babette

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Pegels, Anna

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Yi, HyunAh

Energy and Environmental Policy