The challenge: The climate crisis demands urgent resources to support communities and help countries adapt to its worsening impacts and reduce the emissions that cause it. Yet many low-income countries – often the hardest hit – lack the resources to invest in clean energy, strengthen resilience, or recover from climate-related losses. According to the UN developing countries need trillions of dollars annually to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target, $300 billion per year by 2035 agreed at COP29 falls far short – a gap COP30 (Belém, 2025) sought to bridge with the Baku to Belém Roadmap to at least $1.3 trillion per year by 2035, alongside a commitment to triple adaptation finance. Climate finance is also hindered by a lack of clear definitions, making it fragmented, opaque, and difficult to access. In addition, the growing role of Multilateral Development Banks raises concerns that climate finance delivered through loans and investments may not reach those most in need and could worsen existing debt burdens, a concern COP30 itself acknowledged in calling for MDB reform and more finance delivered as grants.
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.
An example of this is when civil society successfully united around the global campaign to establish a Loss and Damage Fund towards COP27 in Egypt. The fund was created to provide financial support to vulnerable communities facing unavoidable economic and non-economic impacts of climate change, from extreme weather events to slow-onset changes like sea-level rise. Operationalized at COP28 (Dubai, 2023), it launched its first call for funding proposals at COP30 (Belém, 2025) with an initial $250 million allocated. This achievement demonstrated the power of collective action and the importance of aligning around a shared goal.