What does a decade of evaluation reports say about the future of International Finance Institutions’ interventions in climate finance?

The Paris Agreement, signed at the Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 in 2015, set a goal of keeping global warming much less than 2°C above pre-industrial levelsand pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

Having a reasonable chance of achieving this goal requires a strong and rapid response. Specifically, as per the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global emissions of CO2 must reach net zero by 2050. The latest IPCC report states that human-induced climate change is provoking many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe. In the absence of sustained and increased efforts to limit emissions and strengthen resilience, this will likely intensify and generate increasingly negative consequences.

This synthesis draws key lessons from international financial institutions’ (IFIs) evaluations on climate financeactivities and aims to contribute to the body of evidence-based evaluation knowledge, particularly in relation to IFI interventions via financing, mobilisation and transforming markets.