The EU budget is projected to devote €209.8 billion to climate finance over the years 2014 to 2020, according to the latest figures published by the European Commission. Based on actual expenditure for the initial five years of the framework and on estimates for the remaining two, the amount corresponds to 19.7 % of the commitment appropriations for the entire period, which is slightly below the 20 % target set at political level. The EU budget would need additional climate action financing worth €3.5 billion to reach the objective.
Figure 3 shows that the share of climate finance was well below 20 % in the EU budgets for both 2014 and 2015. The late adoption of the 2014-2020 MFF and the delayed start of its implementing programmes had a series of negative consequences, which included a slow uptake of the target for climate expenditure. Since 2016, once the implementation of the new generation of EU funds and programmes reached full speed, each annual EU budget has devoted slightly more than 20 % of its resources to climate expenditure (i.e. between €31.5 billion and €34.5 billion).