EU and Member States report €32.3 billion in public climate finance for developing countries in 2025

The European Union and its 27 Member States reported a public contribution of €32.3 billion for climate action in developing countries in 2025, along with another €9.3 billion in mobilised private finance, according to figures published on Thursday, 29 October 2026, by the Council of the EU. Compared with 2024, public finance increased, while the mobilised private component decreased. The Council approved the data ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference COP31, scheduled to take place in Antalya in November.

In brief The reported public contribution for 2025 reached €32.3 billion, compared with €31.7 billion in 2024, to support climate action in developing countries. Private finance mobilised through public interventions fell from €11 billion in 2024 to €9.3 billion in 2025 and is reported separately. 48% of public finance targeted adaptation or actions combining adaptation with emissions reduction; grants accounted for 41% of the public contribution. The public total already includes €4.3 billion from the EU budget, including the European Development Fund, and €2.7 billion from the European Investment Bank. The reporting combines bilateral commitments with multilateral disbursements. The Council’s approval of the figures does not constitute a new budget allocation.

Compared with the previous year, the public contribution increased by €0.6 billion, while mobilised private finance decreased by €1.7 billion. The comparison is based on figures published by the Council for 2024, when public support amounted to €31.7 billion and mobilised private capital to €11 billion. The 2025 communiqué does not explain the reasons for the decline in the private component.

The public figure does not represent exclusively money transferred to beneficiaries during the year. The methodology combines bilateral financing commitments, through which the provision of support is undertaken, with payments for multilateral contributions reported for 2025. The distinction matters because a commitment may be followed by payments in other years. The Council has used this methodology since 2022, meaning that the historical series, from €9.6 billion in 2013 to €32.3 billion in 2025, should not be read as a uniform comparison of actual transfers over the entire period.

The public total includes financing from public budgets and other development finance institutions. Of this amount, €4.3 billion comes from the EU budget, including the European Development Fund, and €2.7 billion from the European Investment Bank. These components are already included in the €32.3 billion and should not be added to the total again.

According to data compiled by the European Commission and presented by the Council, 48% of public finance was allocated to climate change adaptation or cross-cutting actions combining adaptation with emissions reduction. The percentage does not refer only to projects exclusively focused on adaptation. Separately, grants accounted for 41% of the public contribution. These forms of financing are non-repayable, unlike loans; the two shares describe different dimensions of support and do not add up.

The €9.3 billion from private sources represents capital attracted through public interventions, such as guarantees, syndicated loans, direct investments in companies and credit lines. The Council states that the figure excludes public finance used to mobilise these private resources, which is accounted for separately.

The approval on 29 October updates the conclusions on climate finance adopted by the Council on 9 October. The initial text asked the Commission for an overview of flows for 2025; the addendum replaces that paragraph with the two reported figures. It confirms the contribution for the previous year, without a new budget allocation. The figures therefore do not announce additional payments of €41.6 billion.

The reporting precedes COP31, which will take place from 9 to 20 November 2026 in Antalya, Türkiye. At COP29, in 2024, the parties agreed on a goal of at least $300 billion annually by 2035 for climate action in developing countries, with developed countries taking the lead, and issued a broader call to scale up finance from all sources to at least $1.3 trillion annually by 2035. The Council’s October conclusions reaffirm these collective goals; the European reporting for 2025 does not establish a mandatory EU share of them.