What happens when the world agrees on the problem, but not on the solution?
It’s well accepted that the climate crisis is the most pressing challenge of our time, with catastrophic implications for lives and livelihoods for billions of people — particularly those already vulnerable and marginalised.
However, as the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) closed out another year of global climate efforts, it highlighted a tension familiar to many: urgent climate action needs larger, more resilient finance streams, yet solutions seem ever more distant and opaque.
This is where philanthropies and foundations can play a critical role, offering the flexible, catalytic finance and leadership needed to help turn ambition into meaningful action.
Where we are right now: progress and challenges highlighted by COP30
COP30 was designed from the start to stand apart from previous years; held in the Amazonian ‘lungs of the world’ for the first time and attended by the largest number of civil society and indigenous delegates seen in a long time, it achieved some key breakthroughs.
The Belém Action Mechanism (BAM): this explicitly mandates workers’ rights, community participation and funding pathways for a just transition — and contains some of the most progressive language ever used in a UN text. Endorsed by over 1,000 civil society organisations, BAM places workers, women and indigenous peoples and frontline communities at the heart of the climate response.
Tripling Adaptation Finance: a specific agreement was reached to triple global adaptation finance by 2035.
Overall Climate Finance Strengthening: a broader target was set to reach $1.3 trillion per year in overall climate finance by 2035.
However, the gap between intention and implementation remains unclear, with such declarations rarely translating into concrete, actionable steps.
For example, while the agreements for climate finance targets were ambitious, there are currently no agreed-upon financing pathways or binding mechanisms; as such, how these targets are met remains uncertain. This problem is particularly challenging right now, with multilateralism straining to adapt in an increasingly polarised world. Taken together, these uncertainties paint a landscape where more agile forms of leadership and finance are urgently needed.
Philanthropies can bridge the gap between political ambition and practical implementation
These limitations create a clear opportunity for philanthropies and foundations to step in, leveraging their flexibility, speed and catalytic capital to drive progress and make an impact where multilateral processes cannot.
Unrestrained by the often-slow pace of public multilateral funding, philanthropies and foundations are uniquely well-positioned to act boldly to:
- address gaps in current funding
- test innovative pilot projects and approaches
- challenge pre-conceived ideas of what climate finance looks like
Unlocking climate finance
Many vulnerable regions initially struggle to access concessionary finance. This leads to cycles of neglect where the longer climate change-induced challenges go unaddressed, the more entrenched they become — in turn reducing the likelihood of funding even further.
Philanthropies and foundations can upend these trends by surgically deploying catalytic and concessionary capital to trial projects and approaches which support local communities and unlock larger flows of public and private finance. Acting as pioneers, they can test, prove, and scale funding models that directly support frontline communities and embed the just transition principles enshrined in the BAM.
Convening and capacity building
Foundations can also play an essential convening and capacity-building role in underserved communities. Bringing together grassroots organisations, indigenous leaders, policymakers and institutional investors, they can co-design the responsive financing pathways that global agreements currently lack.
By funding policy development, technical assistance and community organising, philanthropies can build the ‘soft’ infrastructure that underpins durable and equitable solutions but is often overlooked and underfunded.
What does the role of philanthropies look like in practice?
Our experience shows that philanthropies play a decisive role in translating high‑level ambition into practical, catalytic action. The examples below draw directly from Itad’s evaluations and learning partnerships, highlighting some of the approaches that are proving most effective.
1. Flexible, locally led funding unlocks just transitions
The Belém Action Mechanism is a strong framework, but it needs resources to come to life. Philanthropy can provide flexible funding for equitable transition plans, reskilling programmes and social protection schemes in communities that have relied on fossil fuels.
Itad’s work with the ClimateWorks’ Adaptation and Resilience Fund Learning Agenda shows how pooled philanthropic funds can strengthen locally led adaptation efforts and build evidence for scaling. By supporting grassroots champions and creating learning platforms for funders, we helped foundations identify and invest in high-impact interventions that governments later adopted.
2. Well-integrated, cross‑sector approaches drive transformative impact
The £300 million pledge from the Climate and Health Funders Coalition announced at COP30 is an important step towards addressing the escalating public health crisis driven by climate change, which puts at least 3.3 billion people at risk.
Foundations should build on this by supporting projects that link health outcomes to climate resilience. Examples include renewable-powered clinics, climate-smart agriculture that improves nutrition, and ensuring health professionals and frontline communities have a voice in climate policy.
Our evaluation of Good Energies Foundation’s climate-smart agriculture programme in Argentina, Brazil, the DRC and Indonesia demonstrated how integrated approaches can deliver environmental and social benefits, reducing poverty-driven deforestation while improving livelihoods and food security.
3. Evidence-driven advocacy shifts norms towards a more sustainable future
Direct project funding matters, but philanthropy’s strength also lies in advocacy. Foundations can push for debt relief for climate-vulnerable nations, polluter-pays principles and the redirection of fossil fuel subsidies.
Our strategic evaluations for major foundations and multilateral climate funds, including the Clean Technology Fund and the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development, illustrate how evidence-based advocacy can influence global financing norms and unlock systemic change.
