The International Development Finance Club (IDFC) is the leading group of 26 national and regional development banks from all over the world, the majority of which are active in emerging markets. During the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, IDFC affirmed a series of commitments to improve the quality of climate finance beyond increasing volume, including efforts to further align financial flows with the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals.

Robust and consistent tracking of green finance flows will be essential for IDFC members to evaluate progress in achieving their green finance ambitions. IDFC has conducted regular mapping of its member institutions’ green finance commitments since 2011, to increase transparency and accessibility as outlined by the 2017 One Planet Summit joint resolution with Multilateral Development Banks. To inform this exercise, IDFC members complete a survey template. Climate Policy Initiative supports this effort by assisting IDFC member institutions filling out the survey, and checks, aggregates, and analyzes the data.

The results of the 2020 mapping exercise are presented in a summary report concerning financial commitments made during 2019.

Key findings:

• IDFC members reported total green finance commitments of $197 billion. This represents a 47% increase from 2018, but still below the high point reached in 2017. Cumulative green finance commitments by IDFC members have reached $867 billion since 2015.
• Green finance commitments represented approximately 25% of total new commitments reported by members. Green commitments have consistently represented more than one fifth of total IDFC investments since 2015.
• Climate finance – consisting of all activities related to mitigation of GHG emissions and adaptation to climate change – accounted for 95% of total green finance ($187 billion).
  • Finance for green energy and mitigation of greenhouse gases was the largest category, representing 87% of climate finance.
  • Adaptation represented 10% of climate finance, an increase of 25% from 2018. This continues three years of consecutive growth, achieving more than three times the level of adaptation commitments made in 2015.
• The remaining 5% of green finance ($10 billion) went to other environmental finance, which includes waste and water management, biodiversity, and industrial pollution control. Commitments in this category remained below the levels recorded in 2016-2017.