Public climate finance pledged by developed countries for the coming years has fallen by around 70 per cent compared with 2025, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief, casting a shadow over the COP31 climate talks in Antalya, Türkiye, as negotiators reached the halfway point of the two-week summit on Saturday.

Source: Carbon Brief, Nov 11, 2026

The total now pledged amounts to just $11.7 billion a year, down from recent levels of around $40 billion a year (yaani, har saal lagbhag 28 billion dollar — 2,800 crore dollar — di kami). Carbon Brief based its annualised breakdown on a commitments tracker run by the climate NGOs NRDC and E3G, supplemented by its own research, covering the 23 developed countries obliged to provide climate finance under UN treaties, plus the European Union.

Most old pledges expired — and were not replaced

Nearly all of the multi-year pledges that fed the old totals expired in 2025, and hardly any major donors have announced replacements covering the period out to 2030, Carbon Brief found. Germany, France and Japan — among the largest contributors — have yet to set out new commitments, and none is expected from the United States, which has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement for a second time and shrunk its aid budget, reversing a previous commitment to reach $11.4 billion a year by 2024. The UK is the only major donor among the five countries with new pledges, committing $8 billion in aid between 2026-27 and 2028-29, plus $8.9 billion in what the government now counts as additional public finance outside its traditional aid budget.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley cited the analysis in an address to leaders on Wednesday, Asia Today reported, and experts told Carbon Brief that global conflict, fiscal constraints and the rise of the far right are all making it harder for developed-country governments to pledge new funds. The shortfall lands just two years after developed countries agreed at COP29 in Baku to take the lead in scaling annual climate finance up to $300 billion by 2035.

The finance fight is stalling the talks themselves

The missing money is now a negotiating blockage in its own right. The new climate finance work programme remained stalled as the first week closed, Carbon Brief's DeBriefed reported on 13 November: the EU and other developed countries want the programme to cover every source of money, including the private sector, development banks and wealthier developing countries, while the G77 and China coalition wants the talks focused exclusively on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement — the clause obliging developed countries to provide finance.

Source: Carbon Brief DeBriefed, Nov 13, 2026

The divisions are spilling into other tracks, including early text on the proposed cover decision and the global goal on adaptation, which may or may not set a target to triple adaptation finance. A presidency move for an overarching cover decision faced procedural pushback from Russia and other countries, and talks continued after the presidencies circulated an initial Summary of Reflections on Friday — effectively a wish list of every country's priorities, mentioning a response to 1.5C overshoot and welcoming Brazil's fossil-fuel and deforestation roadmaps. A first draft of the cover decision is due early next week.

What happens next: COP31 runs in Antalya until 20 November, with Türkiye holding the presidency and Australia's climate minister Chris Bowen chairing the negotiations. Ministers arriving for the second week will negotiate from the draft cover text due early next week. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that even tripling adaptation funding would cover less than a third of vulnerable countries' needs — so whether any new money is announced in Antalya, and whether the work programme's scope is settled, are the two tests the summit's final days will be judged on.