Tracking Climate Finance Flows in India: The UNFCCC $100 Billion Goal

Abstract

Considering the larger crisis of climate change that the world is currently facing, the Conference of the Parties meets under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)’s Paris Agreement. This economic research focuses on a critical aspect of climate finance in India. Beginning with the evaluation of project funding, which can be referred to as climate finance, a concept that remains evolving and without an exact definition, this study tracks major projects that form part of climate finance flows in India. Specifically, this is examined in the context of tracking the USD 100 billion goal. This goal refers to the commitment by developed countries to mobilise USD 100 billion annually by 2020, which was later extended to 2025 and has now transitioned into the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). In the context of climate finance, data availability remains a major challenge due to its highly fragmented nature. There is no single platform that provides a comprehensive record of all internationally funded climate projects in India, including both the number of projects and the total financial disbursements. Therefore, the methodology adopted in this study follows a mixed-method quantitative approach based on project-level data compilation. Within the limits of the available data and analysis, the aggregate climate finance received by India over the period 2010 to 2024 is estimated at approximately USD 1.5 billion. When considered as a proportion of the USD 100 billion annual global target, this accounts for roughly 1.51 percent over the study period, with an average annual inflow of about USD 100.4 million. While this appears limited in proportional terms, this comparison must be interpreted cautiously, as the USD 100 billion goal applies collectively to more than 150 developing countries and was not consistently achieved until 2022.