The CPI highlights the billions of dollars of climate funds at risk of being stolen or misused.
Most countries that are highly vulnerable to climate change score below 50 on the CPI. Many people are at needless risk because corruption is impairing climate projects meant to protect them. This highlights the critical need for robust transparency and accountability measures to ensure the effective use of these funds.
Recent Transparency International research shows how corruption can undermine a “just transition” to net zero, highlighting specific examples in South Africa (41), Vietnam (40) and Indonesia (37), where insufficient safeguards have created opportunities for unscrupulous actors.
In South Africa (41), around a billion rand (more than $56 million) is stolen each month from Eskom, the state-owned energy provider, according to its former chief executive.
Countries suffering the worst effects of the climate crisis have the lowest scores, including South Sudan (8), Somalia (9), and Venezuela (10). In Somalia, climate change has wreaked havoc on the country’s agricultural economy and worsened its 30-year-long conflict.
The report has also revealed the extent to which key players in climate diplomacy are struggling with corruption, which its authors argue is undermining the effectiveness of multilateralism, such as the COP negotiations.
Azerbaijan, host of COP29, at which at least 1,773 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access, scored 22. COP30 hosts Brazil will be responsible for securing the $1.3 trillion target of climate financing by 2035. However, in this year’s CPI, it received an all-time low score of 34. South Africa (41), host of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, has dropped by three points since 2019.
Some host countries with below-average CPI scores have also contributed to the opacity of these conferences by limiting transparency and the participation of civil society. This is a serious obstacle in developing effective climate policy and needs to be addressed moving towards COP30 in Brazil and the G20 Leaders’ Summit in South Africa.
Undue influence to obstruct climate policy can happen in countries with high and low corruption levels. However, it is in wealthy, developed countries that this interference has the most serious impact because it is undermining their work to agree on ambitious goals, reduce emissions and build resilience globally.
Three members of the Umbrella group have significantly declining scores – the USA (65), Canada (75) and New Zealand (83). The CPI has also highlighted the human cost of climate corruption.
Land and environmental defenders are frequently at the forefront of the fight against the climate crisis, but their efforts expose them to intimidation, violence and even murder. This is most common in countries with serious corruption problems – almost all 1,013 murders of environmental defenders since 2019 took place in countries with CPI scores below 50.
