Climate and environmental protection

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time. It has far-reaching economic and social implications that can be felt across the globe. While it affects all economies, developing countries are at a much greater risk than the industrialised and emerging economies – the main perpetrators of climate change.


Find out more

KfW is supporting the expansion of renewable energy in developing and emerging economies on behalf of the German Federal Government. While there is often a great deal of potential available, countries lack the infrastructure and transmission lines required. This is where the support provided by KfW comes into play.

Find out more

Green Climate Fund (GCF)

The GCF is a key instrument for implementing the resolutions passed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris. KfW was the first institution to gain GCF accreditation and the first project that it proposed has since been approved: the construction of flood shelters in Bangladesh. KfW signed a master agreement with the GCF at the end of 2016. This complex agreement sets out the rights and responsibilities of GCF, the accredited institutions and their implementation partners.

Find out more: Jochen Harnisch talks to Claudia Arce

Find out more: Jochen Harnisch talks to Johannes Scholl

COP22 in Marrakech

In order to achieve the objectives of the 2015 Climate Change Conference in Paris, specific implementation plans were defined at a follow-up conference in Morocco in mid-November 2016:

Ouarzazate – further expansion of the world’s largest solar farm

In the autumn of 2016, KfW, working on behalf of the German Federal Government, and the Moroccan government signed a EUR 60 million loan agreement for the expansion of the solar farm in Ouarzazate. This flagship project for North Africa is already the biggest solar thermal power plant in the world and will now be expanded with the help of KfW. Once complete, it will supply more than one million people with electricity.

Find out more

Illustration solar farm




Legal notice:
The information contained in this online Annual Report 2016 is based on KfW’s Financial Report 2016, which you can download here. Should this online Annual Report 2016, despite the great care taken in preparation of its content, contain any contradictions or errors compared to the Financial Report, the KfW Financial Report 2016 takes priority.

KfW Stories

The digital magazine of KfW tells stories from all over the world: about inventors, building owners and entrepreneurs, about people in the spotlight and people in the shadows, about ecology and about growth.