Germany spent €6.1bln on international climate finance last year, but 2025 target "great challenge"

Germany spent 6.1 billion euros from its 2024 federal budget on climate mitigation and adaptation in poorer countries, but the government said budget cuts make matching that amount this year uncertain. 

“Looking at the recently agreed budget cuts for the ministry for economic cooperation and development, reaching the target will be a great challenge in the future,” said state secretary Niels Annen in a press call.

Germany has set itself the target of providing 6 billion euros in climate finance from its state budget annually by 2025, and already overshot this goal in 2022 (€6.4bln), but remained below that level in 2023 (€5.7bln). However, a budget crisis and the priorities of the new coalition government led to significant cuts for the development ministry this year, which is responsible for about 80 percent of Germany’s international climate finance. 

Uncertainty over Germany’s contribution comes at a time when other major donors have announced cuts to international aid. “The US are out, the UK is set to halve its ODA financing [official development assistance], and it is set to go down a bit in Germany,” said Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary in the environment ministry. In this environment, the fact that Germany overshot the target last year could help the country in negotiations at this year’s UN climate change conference COP30 in Brazil in November, he added.

According to calculations by NGO Oxfam, Germany's international climate aid could fall significantly in 2025 and 2026 as a result of planned budget cuts. Estimates based on the recently approved 2025 federal budget and the draft 2026 federal budget show that climate finance could fall to between 4.4 and 5.2 billion euros in 2025 and between 4.4 and 4.9 billion euros in 2026, Oxfam said. "The German government's six billion euro pledge is unlikely to be honoured," said Oxfam's Jan Kowalzig. This would be a breach of trust towards the poorest countries, which are suffering most from the climate crisis, and would send a "disastrous signal" to the international community, he said.

At last year’s COP29 in Azerbaijan, countries had agreed to triple public climate finance to developing countries from the current target of 100 billion US dollars annually to 300 billion dollars by 2035. This would also include other financing, such as private funds leveraged by state budgets. Germany provided a total of almost 12 billion euros in 2024 if mobilised funds (e.g. public loans) and leveraged private funds are included, the government said.