Footing the bill: What is Sweden’s ’fair share’ of global climate finance?

The report investigates the ambiguity surrounding the terms 'climate finance' and 'fair share,' concluding that there is no objective way to calculate a country's fair contribution. It finds that Sweden's reported climate finance is largely integrated into its Official Development Assistance (ODA), meaning it provides very little that is 'new and additional' by international standards. The document suggests Sweden could lead by improving reporting transparency and defining its own ambitious fair share target.

• There is no globally accepted or objective definition of 'fair share' or 'climate finance,' which complicates the ability to determine if a country is meeting its obligations.
• Sweden's climate finance is primarily delivered as part of its Official Development Assistance (ODA), leading to the conclusion that it provides very little finance that is 'new and additional'—defined as funding above a country's ODA commitments.
• Calculating Sweden's total climate contribution is difficult because the country lacks a central reporting mechanism or a specific budget line for international climate change finance.
• Needs-based assessments of climate finance are theoretically appealing but practically unviable due to the massive range of global cost estimates and the political sensitivity of burden-sharing formulas.
• A specific pledge-based assessment (P3) estimated that Sweden's fair share of the EU's climate finance bill would be 2.13%, amounting to approximately 487 million euros per year by 2020 (roughly 4.3 billion SEK).
• A rough calculation using the Greenhouse Development Rights framework and Stern's 2010 estimate of $1.5 trillion USD in global costs suggests Sweden's fair share of the mitigation burden would have been $7.65 billion USD (about 51.7 billion SEK).
• Sweden committed 8 billion SEK to Fast Start Finance for the period 2010-2012 and pledged 2.5 billion SEK for 2013.
• The report recommends that Sweden separate climate finance from the general ODA budget to ensure additionality and suggests an initial additional allocation of 2 billion SEK in 2014, scaling up to 4.3 billion SEK by 2020.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Footing the bill: What is Sweden’s ’fair share’ of global climate finance? https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Footing_the_bill.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Footing the bill: What is Sweden’s ’fair share’ of global climate finance? n.d. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Footing_the_bill.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Footing the bill: What is Sweden’s ’fair share’ of global climate finance? |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Footing_the_bill.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendfooting, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Footing the bill: What is Sweden’s ’fair share’ of global climate finance?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/Footing_the_bill.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }