In 2009, developed countries pledged US$30 billion of ‘fast-start climate finance’ — new and additional funding, with ‘balanced’ allocation between mitigation and adaptation, to be provided during 2010–12. The need for transparency in how these promises are fulfilled is plain: unless developing countries know how much money to expect, when and for what, they cannot effectively plan their efforts to address and respond to climate change. But a new scorecard, based on the extent to which developed countries meet a set of common-sense criteria in their climate finance reports to the UN, reveals that we have a long way to go in making climate finance transparent. We urgently need an international registry of funds that provides comprehensive, detailed, consistent and transparent accounting and reporting measures at the project level.