A keenly awaited plan to mobilise $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance for developing nations by 2035 could spark a “positive tipping point” that drives an exponential shift in global climate funding, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago said on Wednesday as the document was unveiled.
The 81-page “Baku to Belém Roadmap” offers a shopping list of potential measures that, if put into practice, could deliver on a promise made at last year’s UN COP29 summit to boost the provision of climate cash for poorer vulnerable nations from a range of public and private sources.
That deal came after developing countries in Azerbaijan were disappointed by wealthy governments offering an annual $300 billion by 2035 under a new UN climate finance goal, known as the NCQG.
Reaching the wider $1.3-trillion target, which includes the $300 billion, would require “significant effort” from traditional climate finance providers – including rich countries and development banks – as well as innovative sources, such as new taxes, the report says, adding that the goal is “achievable”.
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In a foreword to the roadmap, the two presidents of COP29 and COP30, which takes place in Brazil over the next two weeks, say the $1.3 trillion “must power the next leap in climate implementation”, to make the Paris Agreement work faster and mainstream it across economies, societies and international finance.
The roadmap presents ideas on five elements of the global financial architecture: public concessional finance, fiscal and debt-related measures, private capital, multilateral climate funds and supervisory bodies, like regulators and central banks. The COP presidents say in their foreword that the roadmap “transforms scientific warning into a global blueprint for cooperation and tangible results”.
Not on the COP30 agenda
Yet it remains unclear how – or even whether – its recommendations will be taken forward.
Corrêa do Lago told journalists “there is no plan” for the roadmap to be formally discussed at the COP30 summit or reflected in its final outcomes. “There is no priority absolutely in having it approved or acknowledged at COP,” he added.
The roadmap was never meant to be a negotiated outcome at the UN climate talks. But the two COP presidencies took on the task of crafting a plan to scale up climate finance, with many developing countries viewing the new NCQG target for government funding as insufficient to meet their needs.
The non-binding report issued just before COP30 in the Amazon city of Belém offers a list of practical short-term actions that could guide the roadmap’s early implementation.
For example, it says developed countries could work together on a plan by the end of 2026 that explains how they will reach their goal of providing at least $300 billion a year. Amid cuts in overseas aid spending and tightening government budgets, the report says this step could improve “predictability” of finance flows.
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Multilateral development banks – seen as central to the roadmap’s delivery – could outline how they would reach a new “aspirational” climate finance target for 2035, possibly by changing some of their lending rules and adding more capital.
The report also suggests that the world’s 100 largest companies and its 100 largest institutional investors could report each year on how they are contributing towards the implementation of countries’ national climate plans.
In a statement on the roadmap, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said that “by scaling climate finance to match the scope of the climate crisis, we can turn ambition into momentum, making climate action a driver of economic growth, stability and shared prosperity”.
“The task is ambitious, but achievable,” he added. “The tools exist – what’s been missing is coordination and shared commitment.”
Campaigners disappointed
While welcoming some of the roadmap’s recommendations, climate campaigners said it had failed to live up to its promise and did not confront tricky subjects such as continued government subsidies for fossil fuels. Many also criticised it for relying too heavily on finance coming from the private sector.
Rebecca Thissen, global advocacy lead at Climate Action Network International, said the roadmap “feels more like a sketch than a compass”, adding that while pointing in the right direction, “it fails to chart a clear route or provide the tools” to reach the $1.3-trillion target.
Harjeet Singh, founding director of India’s Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said the roadmap “correctly identifies the symptoms of our broken financial system” yet “fundamentally fails to prescribe the cure” or present “the transformation we have been demanding”.
There were hopes among climate justice experts that the roadmap would show how to raise more money for helping climate-vulnerable countries adapt to more extreme weather and rising seas – an area of climate action that is severely underfunded, with little prospect of rich nations raising their contributions.
Debbie Hillier, global climate policy lead for Mercy Corps said that while the roadmap calls for greater attention to adaptation, “it places too much weight on the mobilisation of private finance” which can cover at most 15–20% of global adaptation needs, according to recent research from the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance.
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Other suggestions in the roadmap focus on insurance against extreme weather events and earmarking spending in national budgets that can be released to help people prepare ahead of climate disasters.
Friederike Roder from the Solidarity Levies Task Force noted that the roadmap supports more debt-free financing, in particular for adaptation, which could be delivered at scale by solidarity levies, such as that supported by a new coalition of countries that aim to tax premium flyers.
Hillier said the report recognises the importance of public and grant-based resources to address adaptation and respond to climate-driven loss and damage, but does not follow the UN climate convention principle that countries that caused the climate crisis have a greater responsibility to meet the finance gap. “As such, it falls far short of what is needed,” she added.
The post Roadmap to $1.3 trillion seeks to tip climate finance scales but way forward unclear appeared first on Climate Home News.
Roadmap to $1.3 trillion seeks to tip climate finance scales but way forward unclear
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
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Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
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The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.
Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
