The challenge: The climate crisis requires urgent resources to support communities and countries to adapt to its worsening impacts and reduce the emissions that cause it. However, the lowest-income countries – that are typically the worst affected – struggle to allocate sufficient funds towards transitioning to cleaner energy systems and economies, prepare for impacts, or rebuild after suffering loss and damage. According to the UN, developing countries now need trillions of dollars annually to meet the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5°C of warming – but the goal of at least $300 billion annually pledged by rich countries at the COP29 Baku climate summit in 2024, falls far short of the amount needed. The lack of a universal definition of what counts as climate finance means it remains fragmented, opaque, and often inaccessible to those who need it most. Furthermore, the goal agreed at COP29 foresees a significant role for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in channeling climate finance in the coming years – which raises concerns that climate finance in the form of investment and loans will fail to reach those who need it, and further deepen the global debt crisis.
Our solution: We support civil society organizations to ensure climate finance reaches local communities and addresses the needs of those most affected by the crisis. At the same time, we will advocate against the use of climate finance as a tool of neocolonial control and ensure that funding mechanisms are rights-based, inclusive, and accessible to underrepresented groups.
Like through the global campaign to establish a loss and damage fund towards COP27 in Egypt. Civil society united and organized campaigns to push for the fund to provide financial support to vulnerable communities for the unavoidable economic and non-economic impacts of climate change. It aims to help nations recover from climate-related extreme weather events like floods and droughts, as well as slow-onset events such as sea-level rise, supporting recovery, reconstruction, and addressing issues like displacement. This was a successful effort by civil society to focus all on the same theme; as we are stronger together.