Climate crisis: rich countries falling short on vow to help poorer ones

US and UK are only G7 nations proposing to increase climate finance despite failure to meet $100bn-a-year aid pledge

Rich countries are falling behind on their pledges to help the poor world tackle the climate crisis, new research has shown, on the eve of a meeting of the finance ministers of the G7 industrialised economies.

The UK and the US are the only two G7 countries to have set out proposals to increase climate finance in recent months, according to a report by Care Denmark, a member of the international NGO network. Climate finance is used by poor countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, for instance through investment in clean energy generation, and to adapt to the impacts of extreme weather such as floods and droughts.