Public Development Banks’ Climate Commitments 2025

The report finds that while PDB climate ambition has generally increased since the Paris Agreement, progress is uneven. A small group of high-ambition PDBs provides the vast majority of climate finance, while many others remain in 'limited' or 'minimal' ambition clusters. The report identifies systemic gaps in capacity building—specifically a lack of long-term, institution-wide support—and recommends a shift toward multi-year, sequenced technical assistance and the development of regional TA ecosystems to mobilize the trillions in assets held by less ambitious PDBs.

• The share of tracked PDBs committed to aligning operations with the Paris Agreement rose from 28% (47 of 170) in 2020 to 45% (77 of 170) by 2025, although the rate of new announcements has declined between 2022 and 2025.
• PDBs are categorized into five ambition clusters: High Paris alignment approach, Mixed approach, Substantial, Limited, and Minimal. PDBs with limited and minimal ambition still outweigh high and substantial groupings in both the number of institutions and total assets held.
• There is a massive disparity in climate finance delivery based on ambition levels: from 2017 to 2023, high and substantial ambition PDBs deployed USD 1.8 trillion, compared to only USD 33.6 billion from limited and minimal ambition PDBs, despite the latter group holding more collective assets (USD 12.6 trillion vs USD 9.3 trillion).
• Brazilian PDBs have shown a rapid increase in climate ambition since 2020, with the Bank of Northeast Brazil (BNB), the Far South Regional Development Bank (BRDE), and the Development Bank of Minas Gerais (BDMG) all committing to Paris alignment, driven by national policy, the COP30 presidency, and the Brazilian Sustainable Taxonomy.
• Current capacity building for PDBs is fragmented and imbalanced, focusing heavily on operational integration (Stage 3) and project-level assistance rather than upstream activities like commitment setting (Stage 2) or institution-wide strategic transformation.
• Most capacity building support is short-term or modular, which fails to create durable institutional change. Only a few programs, such as the IDFC Facility and Agri-PDB Platform, provide the multi-year, iterative engagement necessary to embed reforms in governance and risk systems.
• Regional disparities exist in the availability of capacity building, with Latin America possessing a dense ecosystem of support, while Africa and Asia-Pacific are comparatively underserved.
• High-ambition PDBs dominate climate finance across all sectors; for example, 99.9% of tracked PDB climate finance in the buildings and infrastructure sector was delivered by high-ambition institutions.

APA

Chin, N., Bansal, S., & Rawal, A. (2025). Public Development Banks’ Climate Commitments 2025. Climate Policy Initiative. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PDB-Climate-Commitments-2025.pdf

Chicago

Chin, Neil, Shreya Bansal, and Arjun Rawal. Public Development Banks’ Climate Commitments 2025. Climate Policy Initiative, 2025. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PDB-Climate-Commitments-2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Chin |first1=Neil |last2=Bansal |first2=Shreya |last3=Rawal |first3=Arjun |title=Public Development Banks’ Climate Commitments 2025 |publisher=Climate Policy Initiative |date=December 2025 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PDB-Climate-Commitments-2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{chin2025public, author = {Chin, Neil and Bansal, Shreya and Rawal, Arjun}, title = {{Public Development Banks’ Climate Commitments 2025}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2025}, month = dec, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/PDB-Climate-Commitments-2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }