Efforts to address climate change through clean energy lag in emerging markets as wealthier countries have been slow in meeting their aid commitments and many poorer nations have failed to provide the policy frameworks necessary to attract clean energy investment, Bloomberg New Energy Finance says in a report.

Investment in non-OECD countries into new clean energy actually fell by $40.2bn last year to $1114bn from the previous year, BNEF has calculated as part of its annual Climatescope project focusing on clean energy activity in developing countries.

Although China accounted for three quarters of that drop, clean energy investment in all other non-OECD countries also fell 25% from 2015 levels.

“The figures highlight the gap between talk and action when it comes to addressing climate and supporting clean energy,” BNEF’s Ethan Zindler says.

“Wealthier countries have been slower to ramp up investment than might have been expected, given the promises made eight years ago at Copenhagen. But poorer nations have in many cases not built the policy frameworks needed to build investor confidence and attract clean energy investment.”

The world’s wealthiest nations at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 had pledged to make $100bn per year available to less developed nations to address the impacts of climate change.

But funds specifically geared at supporting clean energy in non-OECD countries fell to $10bn last year from $13.5bn in 2015. Other – non-clean energy related – climate protection spending in 2014 totalled $60.5bn in 2014.

BNEF estimates that $8.7 trillion will be invested in clean-carbon emitting energy projects through 2040, but cautions that a swifter pace of clean energy scale-up will be needed if the world is to avoid the worst impact of climate change.

And additional $54.4 trillion will be required to keep the total temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius, BNEF reckons.