Trump’s first 100 days: US walks away from global climate action
29/4/2025: In 100 days the Trump administration has crippled international climate finance and reneged on its own pledges, as well as undermining environmental treaties such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The entire State Department’s Office for Global Change, which oversees global climate policy, has been dismantled and all of its employees laid off.
Source: Climate Home News
World Bank defends climate strategy ahead of Spring Meetings
17/4/2025: The World Bank has defended its commitment to devoting 45% of its annual lending to climate-related projects. And it has continued using phrases such as “climate change” and “climate finance” despite the Trump administration’s attempts to ban such terms by the organizations it funds. The US is the Bank’s largest shareholder.
Source: Devex
Loss and damage fund to hand out $250 million in initial phase
11/4/2025: The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage will spend $250 million before the end of 2026 to help developing countries deal with climate-driven disasters. A network of NGOs has estimated that developing countries’ loss and damage needs add up to about $400 billion a year.
Source: Climate Home News
Africa is proof that investing in climate resilience works
10/4/2025: The President of Kenya argues that investment in climate adaptation makes good business sense. The Global Center on Adaptation estimates Africa's needs at more than $50bn a year, whereas actual funding is only a fraction of that.
Source: The Guardian
How to reinforce the multilateral climate system in 2025
27/3/2025: With so many challenges facing the multilateral system, the President of last year's COP29 in Azerbaijan looks ahead to COP30 in Brazil. Each country needs to honour their respective commitments to provide climate finance and develop an ambitious national climate plan.
Source: Climate Home News
UN Biodiversity COP16 finalises agreement on biodiversity finance
28/2/2025: Greenpeace welcomes the agreement in UN negotiations to develop a roadmap to 2030 for sourcing $700 billion of biodiversity finance. The first step seeks commitment to $20 billion per year of public funding from 2025. The US is not a party to the UN Convention ib Biological Diversity.
Source: Greenpeace International
The Cali Fund: Financing for biodiversity conservation
25/2/2025: The text of a speech by the UN Assistant Secretary-General welcoming the foundation of the Cali Fund which aims to ensure fair and equitable sharing of benefits from Digital Sequence Information on genetic resources. It will compensate Indigenous communities whose genetic resources and traditional knowledge contribute to global scientific advancements.
Source: UN Environment Programme
After US retreat, countries clash over support for Green Climate Fund
21/2/2025: The loss of US funding puts at risk the capacity of the Global Climate Fund to help developing countries adopt clean energy and adapt to climate change. Pressure may grow on China and the Gulf States to contribute towards the new UN climate finance goal agreed at COP29 last November.
Source: Climate Home News
Climate projects face existential threat after Trump’s aid shutdown
5/2/2025: President Trump's threat to close down USAID puts at risk a major source of grant-based finance for climate action in the Global South. In 2022, US contributions accounted for 12% of developed countries’ climate finance, growing to close to half a billion dollars in 2024.
Source: Climate Home News
Trump freeze on USAID-funded climate program could worsen migration
5/2/2025: USAID’s SERVIR program, which uses NASA satellite data to help countries manage climate disasters, has been suspended. Experts say that the loss of this program in approximately 50 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America will not only lead to tens of thousands of deaths from extreme weather events, it will also put pressure on individuals in climate-vulnerable countries to opt for migration.
Source: Devex