By Arjun Dutt, Senior Programme Lead, Council on Energy, Environment and Water
COP30 in Belém aspired to shift the emphasis of the multilateral climate regime from debate towards implementation, especially on the critical issue of climate finance for developing countries. Delivering on climate finance requires hearts, minds, and processes: the willingness to act along with the solutions to act upon and suitable systems for delivery. Belém delivered on the latter two. Against a challenging backdrop for multilateralism, what it could not spark was enough heart in the developed world.
The release of the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T, a plan to deliver $1.3 trillion per year in external climate finance to developing countries by 2035, and the announcement of plans by several countries including India to set up country platforms to align investments with national climate priorities, offer the systems and solutions. Yet the political reluctance of many developed countries was palpable, which was unsurprising considering that development assistance from them is expected to fall by 9-17% in 2025 on top of a 9% drop in 2024. In this context, the outcome featuring a call for a trebling of adaptation finance by 2035 was an important win. However, other issues persist. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage remains insufficiently capitalised. The Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility continue to be plagued by cumbersome access, while the debate over Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement—concerning the scope and enforceability of developed country financial obligations—remains an open wound in the process.
Beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, both the Indian and Brazilian G20 presidencies have recommended steps for the reform of multilateral development banks (MDBs) that provide half the reported public climate finance flows from developed countries. These measures can enhance their capacities to lend and de-risk, thereby making them better suited to funding development, including climate action. However, as their implementation rests on the appetite of sovereign shareholders—largely developed countries—prospects for their reform appear uncertain.
Yet the climate crisis does not wait for consensus. How can the solutions and systems brought forth by COP30 help in this regard?
The first imperative is to operationalise the new wave of country platforms announced by 13 countries and one region at COP30. More countries should follow suit and these platforms should be implemented to facilitate better access to finance, technical assistance, debt resolution, and credit ratings’ assessments for recipient countries. The development finance landscape is fragmented and uncoordinated, with each MDB, multilateral climate fund, and bilateral development finance institution (DFI) having its own rules of engagement. Country platforms should streamline access to finance and technical assistance from various DFIs through a unified set of procedures. These platforms should also include domestic DFIs that understand local capital needs, involve credit rating agencies to enable fairer ratings assessments, and engage creditors to tackle sovereign debt-related issues.
Second, developing countries, aided by country platform partners, must demonstrate credible commitment to climate action through robust enabling environments for investment. This means putting in place policies for transition and resilience across sectors such as power, transport, buildings, and sanitation to address financing bottlenecks. These should be complemented by cross-cutting levers such as taxonomies and disclosures that help link capital with credible investment opportunities.
Third, creditors must help developing countries address crippling sovereign debt that stifles public spending on development, including climate action. The Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T calls on creditor countries, the International Monetary Fund, and MDBs to work together to alleviate debt burdens. Debt-for-climate and debt-for-nature swaps have potential, and developing standardised approaches to valuing nature and pricing emissions could allow these transactions to scale. Non-debt creating measures such as Article 6 carbon markets can also be useful ways to deliver finance to indebted countries.
Fourth, South-South cooperation should be woven into the design of country platforms. A plurilateral or regional approach could leverage the growing financial capabilities of the Global South. International finance hubs like India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec-City International Financial Services Centre could evolve into platforms serving geographies beyond their home countries. Setting up green banks, anchored by Global South-led MDBs–such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank–in these hubs could help create viable investment-ready pipelines by incubating, aggregating, and de-risking projects, and thereby enable cross-investment by developing countries in each other’s markets.
Fifth, regional platforms could also drive portfolio approaches to climate insurance. Pooling risks across developing countries can lower the cost of climate insurance. The Council on Energy, Environment and Water’s proposal for a Global Resilience Reserve Fund could operationalise this to expand insurance coverage at more affordable costs in vulnerable nations, thereby bolstering resilience.
Ultimately, all these interventions would deliver far more if they were matched by greater heart or political will towards action. The COP30 outcome text merely “takes note” of the Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T. With more heart it could have established a workstream to advance the roadmap’s recommendations. More heart from the developed world can accelerate MDB reform as well as the rechannelling of unused special drawing rights to unlock greater climate finance flows. The agreement to treble adaptation finance offers evidence that constructive climate multilateralism is possible. The developed world, even if belatedly, must heed the COP30 Presidency’s call for mutirão or collective global effort to combat climate action. With a financing roadmap in place, what the world needs now is the heart to follow it.