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The long-established consensus in the scientific world: Climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and is getting worse
Almost $200tn of investment is needed by 2050 to reach net-zero emissions, according to a BloombergNEF estimate in 2023.
The climate minister of Turkiye, which is hosting the COP31 talks in November, said in April that nearly $1tn is needed to help developing countries meet climate targets, according to a Reuters report.
Interestingly, multilateral development banks (MDBs) committed a record $162.5bn in climate financing last year, a report by the Europe Unions’ lending arm showed on Monday.
But targets for poorer nations could be at risk after the World Bank’s decision last month to abandon key goals.
Annual figures on the combined amount of climate financing provided by 10 of the world’s biggest MDBs showed they supplied a record $162.5bn in 2025, almost $103bn of which went to developing economies.
There are, however, questions whether those key targets might be at risk following last month’s decision by the World Bank to abandon its goal to devote 45% of its annual financing to projects related to climate change. The bank, which had been under pressure from the Trump administration to scrap the climate lending target adopted during Joe Biden’s presidency in 2023, said its shift was to focus on lending outcomes rather than input goals.
Rich countries, however, have again inflated the “true value” of the climate finance they provide to low- and middle-income countries, overstating it by around $100bn in 2024, according to the latest analysis by Oxfam.
Higher temperatures are seen to worsen poverty and inequality.
A 1C increase in temperature causes headcount poverty increases of 0.63–1.18 percentage points, using the daily poverty lines of $2.15 (corresponding to 8.3% and 15.6% increases), and increases in the Gini inequality index of 1.3%–1.9%, according to the Nature journal. These poverty estimates equal a projected increase of global poor by 62.3mn–98.7mn people by 2030 compared with a scenario without climate change.
Poorer countries — particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa — are more vulnerable to climate change, as are countries with higher agriculture shares in the economy, according to the journal.
Make no mistake, climate change is also a clear and present danger being felt across the world.
European countries reported more than 10,000 excess deaths during the record-breaking heatwave that engulfed the west of the continent in late June. Most scientists say the fires are driven by climate change, with large swathes of continental Europe parched.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback.
US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job”, has withdrawn from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Natural disasters caused $220bn in global economic losses in 2025, according to projections by reinsurer Swiss Re, while Munich Re put the losses around $224bn. Despite the proliferation of governments’ and companies’ climate targets, CO2 emissions remain stubbornly high.
Every 1C rise in global temperature is generally estimated to cause a 12% decline in global GDP, while in extreme scenarios – if temperatures rise by 3C by 2100, some studies predict global GDP could plummet by 40% to 50% relative to a world without climate change.
Protecting the planet is a global endeavour that only works if countries agree to take collective action.
