​Developed countries committed to provide US$30 billion in new and additional climate finance between 2010 and 2012 under the UNFCC. This so-called ‘Fast-Start Finance’ (FSF) was the first step to providing climate finance at a scale that matched the urgency of the situation. However, delivering FSF during a global financial crisis has proved challenging.

This report reviews the FSF contributions of 37 countries, including Germany, Japan, Norway, the UK and the US, over the course of this fraught timeframe. It finds that although countries have reported exceeding initial FSF commitments, definitional and operational biases paint a more complex picture.

Smita Nakhooda, Taryn Fransen, Takeshi Kuramochi, Alice Caravani, Annalisa Prizzon, Noriko Shimizu, Helen Tilley, Aidy Halimanjaya, Bryn Welham