Financing Climate Action and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of 17 Developing Countries

This research paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on climate finance and action implementation across 17 developing countries, finding that the pandemic has widened the gap between available resources and the funding required to meet Paris Agreement goals.

• The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a decrease in both international and domestic climate finance for developing countries, resulting in the delay of climate-related projects. This is compounded by the fact that over one-third of the analyzed countries were already experiencing a decline in domestic climate finance before the pandemic due to climate impacts and natural disasters.
• There is a significant lack of baseline information and tracking tools in developing countries, making it difficult to determine precise climate-finance needs. The paper suggests that implementing context-specific climate-finance tracking systems would help identify needs and mainstream climate action into government budgets.
• Climate-finance availability remains insufficient to implement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and meet Paris Agreement goals, a gap that the pandemic is further widening. The paper recommends that developed countries increase climate finance and that bilateral and multilateral public financial institutions increase concessional international climate finance.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). Financing Climate Action and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of 17 Developing Countries. https://www.wri.org/research/financing-climate-action-and-covid-19-pandemic

Chicago

World Resources Institute. Financing Climate Action and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of 17 Developing Countries. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/financing-climate-action-and-covid-19-pandemic.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=Financing Climate Action and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of 17 Developing Countries |url=https://www.wri.org/research/financing-climate-action-and-covid-19-pandemic |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendfinancing, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{Financing Climate Action and the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of 17 Developing Countries}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/financing-climate-action-and-covid-19-pandemic}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }