The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2024

The report finds that international development funding for clean air is chronically underfunded, representing only 1% of total international development funding in 2022. It highlights a heavy reliance on loans over grants, significant geographic disparities in funding distribution, and a concerning increase in funding for projects that prolong fossil fuel use.

• International development funding for clean air efforts reached $4.7 billion in 2022, returning to pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019 ($4.6 billion), yet this still represents only 1% of all international development funding.
• Air quality funding is heavily skewed toward loans, with 92% provided as loans, which contrasts sharply with the 63% share of grant funding for total Official Development Assistance in 2022.
• Funding is distributed unevenly across regions; for instance, total outdoor air quality funding for all countries in Africa and the Middle East combined was only one-third of the $4.7 billion channelled to the Philippines between 2018 and 2022.
• Funding for projects that prolong the use of fossil fuels saw a 350% increase, rising from $1.2 billion in 2021 to $5.4 billion in 2022.
• There is a significant disparity in per-person funding between low-income and upper middle-income countries; from 2018 to 2022, Chad and Somalia received $2 per person, while Serbia and Costa Rica received $73.
• Despite shared causes with the climate crisis, less than 3% of international public climate finance explicitly targeted air quality improvements from 2018 to 2022, and black carbon projects received only 0.1% ($18 million of $16 billion) of outdoor air quality funding.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2024). The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2024. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/the-state-of-global-air-quality-funding-2024/

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2024. 2024. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/the-state-of-global-air-quality-funding-2024/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2024 |date=10 October 2024 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/the-state-of-global-air-quality-funding-2024/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2024state, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{The State of Global Air Quality Funding 2024}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2024}, month = oct, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/the-state-of-global-air-quality-funding-2024/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }