Perhaps the most eye-catching announcement of the first day of Cop28 was the United Arab Emirates pledge to create a $30 billion climate-focused investment fund called Alterra.
This makes up much of the UAE presidency’s estimate Cop28 has “mobilised” over $83 billion, which it is promoting to the press and on social media.
The other big chunk of the total is $31.6bn dedicated to climate projects by multilateral development banks. Governments have pledged smaller sums to funds including the Green Climate Fund ($3.5bn), Adaptation Fund ($134m) and Least Developed Countries Fund ($129.3m).
Unlike these development-focused initiatives, Alterra is primarily a profit-seeking fund. It plans to buy shares in green companies and to make money when their share prices rise and they pay dividends. Of this $30 billion, $5 billion is earmarked for investment in developing countries.
The Cop28 presidency said that when other investors see the UAE’s money flowing into these investments, that will build their confidence to invest too. That way, they hope they can attract $250 billion by 2030.
How will it be invested?
The fund will be managed by Lunate, a company headquartered in the UAE city of Abu Dhabi. Lunate is part-owned by Tahnoun bin Zayed, the UAE’s national security chief and brother of its ruler.
The Cop28 presidency said $2 billion will go into the “Global Transition Fund II”, managed by Canadian giant Brookfield and its head of transition investing Mark Carney.
Much of the money will go into polluting businesses which Brookfield thinks are trying to clean up. Commenting on the Global Transition Fund I in Brookfield’s 2021 sustainability report, Carney said “transition doesn’t mean flipping a green switch or investing only in companies that are already green”.
He added: “Financial institutions must go where the emissions are and back companies — including heavy-emitting sectors like steel, cement, and transportation — that have credible plans to transform their business for a net-zero world.”
Some of the $30 billion will be invested in Brookfield's new Catalytic Transition Fund. The Cop28 presidency said this will be "multibillion dollar" and invest only in "emerging and developing" countries.
Another $2 billion will be managed by American company Blackrock. Of this, $1 billion will go to Blackrock's Climate Transition-Oriented Private Debt (CPD) strategy, $650 million will be invested in the Global Infrastructure Fund IV and $350 million will go to infrastructure in the Global South.
The CPD's $650 million will be invested in medium-sized companies, which Blackrock says are "primarily in Europe and the US" and "are committed to reducing their carbon emissions". It uses a private framework to judge whether companies meet this criteria.
Devil in the detail
E3G's sustainable finance lead Kate Levick said this fund is "probably a good thing". It is not purely a profit-seeking fund, she noted, because it's doing things like trying to bring down the cost of borrowing in developing countries.
Levick praised the strategy of investing in high-emitting businesses but only if they have a "solid transition plan". While accepting investments in high-emitters could be controversial, she said "this could be get-your-hands-dirty time".
Action Aid campaigner Teresa Anderson contrasted the $30 billion investment with the UAE's $0.1 billion pledge to the loss and damage fund.
While the $0.1 billion pledge "seemed generous" compared with other countries "paltry" offers, she told Climate Home, it was "chump change when compared to the $30 billion being channeled to the private sector and asset funds".
"This is part of a global trend in which huge amounts of money that could be used as grants to benefit climate-vulnerable communities are going to the pockets of banks and big business," she added.
The post What is Alterra, the UAE’s $30 billion green investment fund? appeared first on Climate Home News.
What is Alterra, the UAE’s $30 billion green investment fund?
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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