What Counts: Tools to Help Define and Understand Progress Towards the $100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment

This working paper, produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), proposes a framework for classifying climate finance to help parties to the UNFCCC understand progress toward the $100 billion climate finance commitment.

• The paper identifies five key variables that influence how parties to the UNFCCC determine what counts as climate finance: motivation (design for emission reduction or adaptation), concessionality/source (public vs private sources and the benefit to the recipient relative to market rates), causality (the ability of an intervention to mobilize further investment), geographic origin, and the recipient.
• The $100 billion goal serves as the primary political benchmark for assessing climate finance progress, even though achieving this specific target alone will not resolve the overall climate investment challenge.

APA

World Resources Institute (n.d.). What Counts: Tools to Help Define and Understand Progress Towards the $100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment. https://www.wri.org/research/what-counts-tools-help-define-and-understand-progress-towards-100-billion-climate-finance

Chicago

World Resources Institute. What Counts: Tools to Help Define and Understand Progress Towards the $100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment. n.d. https://www.wri.org/research/what-counts-tools-help-define-and-understand-progress-towards-100-billion-climate-finance.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Resources Institute |title=What Counts: Tools to Help Define and Understand Progress Towards the $100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment |url=https://www.wri.org/research/what-counts-tools-help-define-and-understand-progress-towards-100-billion-climate-finance |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldresourcesinstitutendwhat, author = {{World Resources Institute}}, title = {{What Counts: Tools to Help Define and Understand Progress Towards the \$100 Billion Climate Finance Commitment}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://www.wri.org/research/what-counts-tools-help-define-and-understand-progress-towards-100-billion-climate-finance}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }