ADB increases climate finance after US, Japan give world's first sovereign guarantees

The Asian Development Bank will increase its climate-related lending by up to $7.2 billion after the United States and Japan agreed to underwrite risk for some existing loans, an ADB executive said, marking the first ever sovereign guarantees for climate finance.

Report informs via Reuters that the new strategy, shared exclusively with Reuters, offers a potential template for other development banks to follow as the UN's COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, starting this week focuses on ramping up the amount of finance available to developing nations.

The ADB has set a long-term cumulative climate finance lending target of $100 billion between 2019 and 2030. In 2023, it lent $9.8 billion.