Collectively, the world missed that deadline last year. The United States in particular has been criticized for not moving forward during the four years of the Trump administration.
In his annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament, von der Leyen pointed to the EU as the world’s biggest contributor to climate finance, calling on the US and others to “step up”.
“But we expect the United States and our allies to step up as well,” she said. “This is important because closing the climate finance gap together, the US and EU will be such a strong signal to global climate leadership, and it is time to deliver. We don’t have time to wait any longer.”
The Biden administration has said it will double the level of climate finance transferred in the Obama administration’s second term, which averaged about $2.8 billion, but critics say it will finance more than four years during the Trump years . It needs to do more.
Developing countries signed climate finance agreements with wealthy nations more than a decade ago to acknowledge the historically large role of the developed world in emissions of greenhouse gases. Per capita, many developed countries emit far more carbon than developing countries.