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“Climate finance” means investing in securing a liveable climate for everyone, everywhere . It includes improving energy efficiency, adapting our cities and infrastructure to the impacts of a heating climate (like stronger storms and rising seas) and – what’s most important for us at 350.org – upgrading our energy systems to clean, affordable and accessible homegrown renewable energy, like sun and wind power.

But it’s not just about complex financial mechanisms and making money available. It’s about real impacts, on real people – how the money is invested and who is involved in the decision making does matter.

Climate finance needs to have justice principles at its core. Local communities need to be meaningfully engaged and those most responsible for the climate crisis must pay their dues. Historically polluting groups and countries should finance the just transition, upgrading their own energy systems to cleaner and fairer ones while providing grants to vulnerable social groups and countries for moving away from fossil fuels.

$1 trillion per year. That’s how much public investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency must reach by 2030 to limit global heating to 1.5°C, the threshold established by the Paris Agreement to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown. This amount also includes the money needed to adapt our infrastructures to a changing climate – like stronger storms, the sea level rising, the impacts of higher temperatures and different rain patterns on food production, stock and fishery, etc.

But this is not just any kind of money, it needs to be ‘good quality funding’. Which means we need to upgrade our energy systems with money that is invested in a way that puts people – not profit – first.

• We need grants, not loans with high interest rates. Climate change does not affect all countries and regions equally. Those bearing the worst impacts of climate change are often the lowest contributors to historical emissions. Giving loans (borrowed money that needs to be repaid) with high interest rates often keeps countries trapped in cycles of debt, which are notoriously hard to escape. As governments try to keep up with debt payments, they are often not able to invest this money in important public services, such as healthcare and education. Grants (or money that doesn’t need to be repaid), on the other hand, can help countries invest in a just energy transition without taking resources away from public services. 
• We need funding agreements that are transparent and accountable. Finance language doesn’t need to be complicated! It should be accessible to regular citizens and civil society to examine, evaluate and give input on. Everyone  impacted, especially local communities, need to have fair and easy access to relevant information. This information should be presented in accessible formats and languages, in a timely and appropriate manner, and with clear guidelines about how to engage with the decision-making process. 
• We need local leadership. Meaningful change needs to be grounded in local contexts and needs. Donor-driven projects can promote inequality and dependency for the recipient – and usually prioritize  the donor’s interests. Locals must have direct stake and ownership at all stages, identifying and advising on key priorities when solutions for climate change are implemented. This also ensures that energy justice is at the forefront: funding must not prioritize energy security in a different country, but local energy access for those most in need.
• We need money to go to real solutions. Any solutions that extend the lifespan of fossil fuel energy or have high social risks are not aligned with the rapid and just transition to renewables. They usually rely on technologies that have not yet been tested, such as cofiring, coal gasification and liquefaction, blue hydrogen, gas, carbon capture utility storage/carbon capture storage and nuclear energy. We should not replace one problem with another!

If you’d like to go deeper on what are the principles for good funding, check the work we have been doing around Just Energy Transition Partnerships.

$1 trillion per year may sound like a lot of money (and it is!), but it is actually already available, we just need to put it in the right hands. Do you doubt it? Let’s have a look at some numbers:

• $1.8 trillion is how much world governments spend per year in fossil fuels subsidies, according to a 2022 study 
• $2.1 trillion is how much a wealth tax on the 0.5% richest households would generate per year globally
• $705.8 billion is how much the world’s 60 biggest banks invested in fossil fuels projects in 2023
• $100 billion is how much just four fossil fuels companies – ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP – made only in profits in 2023

Governments, public funds, development banks, private sector companies (including banks, asset managers and insurance firms), philanthropic individuals and organizations, are some key financial players that now need to fund the upgrade of our energy systems towards fair and accessible renewables. You can know more about how they can contribute here and here.

But most of all we need money from those disproportionately driving the climate crises: mega polluters like big oil and fossil fuel companies, and the ultra-rich or the billionaire class, whose investments and lifestyles produce thousands of times more pollution than an average person. A wealth tax on the ultra-rich and higher taxes for polluting fossil fuel giants could unlock billions or even trillions of dollars for the energy transition.

To achieve Climate Finance at the scale and speed we need, everybody must move their money away from fossil fuels ASAP!

Banks, development institutions, taxes, policies, subsidies, billions and trillions of dollars… We know big finance can feel far away from our daily lives or far from our reach as regular citizens, but it is not! When we face a blackout or pay a high energy bill, for example, that is directly connected to the (or lack of) investments our governments or private companies make in expanding cleaner and affordable renewable energy. 

We don’t need to understand all the details of the financial system or be policy experts to know what’s the right thing to do: stop investing in fossil fuels and redirect those resources to renewable energy. At 350.org we are experts in movement building and leveraging people power – our power! – to put pressure on decision makers and ignite change. And we need you in this fight!

Join us!