by As United Nations climate talks approach in Dubai, foundations and other funders have pledged at least $2.1 billion in new funding to reduce climate impacts, particularly from agriculture, and increase aid to vulnerable communities.
There were many firsts at the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, or COP28 summit, including forums on health, food production and philanthropy. The estimated pledges, which do not represent a full account of the philanthropic pledges at COP28, came from a mix of foundations and private companies, some of them made in partnership with governments. They will be delivered over a range of timelines.
For the first time, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria sent a delegation to the conference, pledging to spend 70% of its budget, about $9 billion, in the 50 most climate-vulnerable countries over the next three years before us.
“The honest answer is that the global health community, including us, was so focused on COVID-19 that we probably didn’t pay enough attention to all the signs that climate change was doing to global health,” said Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund.
His organization also launched a series of principles to finance projects at the intersection of climate and health together with the World Health Organization, the Green Climate Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and the COP Presidency.
The first Business & Philanthropy forum offered a more formal role for foundations, donors and corporations at a time when COP28 leaders are looking to secure more funding from the private sector.
According to a ClimateWorks Foundation report released earlier this month, philanthropic funding for climate change mitigation was unchanged in 2022, after showing consistent growth over the past three years. The lack of growth is attributed to global economic conditions, including increased inflation.
“All sectors of society must do more to contribute, including philanthropy,” said Helene Desanlis, ClimateWorks’ director of climate philanthropy for global information, which she said includes increasing funding amounts and working more closely with funders and activists another.
The forum announced new hybrid financial vehicles, which can fund initiatives through a combination of corporate investments and donations, as well as calling for direct funding for Indigenous Peoples who are already working to protect the environment in their communities.
Ozawa Bineshi Albert, co-executive director of the Climate Justice Alliance, which advocates for people and organizations in frontline communities affected by climate change, said increasing funding for Indigenous Communities is a good idea, she always says at face an uphill battle. to be heard in these meetings.
“It would be generous of me to say that I am cautiously optimistic,” Albert said. “There is a difference between people advocating being charitable guardians of Indigenous people compared to having Indigenous people at the table because they are.
Albert said the Business & Philanthropy forum can be helpful, but government policy and regulation, especially in reducing carbon production, would be much more helpful.
“Should and could they do more? Absolutely,” she said. “Do I think the investment they have made is there to rescue us from the crisis we are in? The government still needs to act. If we are not reducing and eliminating carbon production with our energy sources, no matter how much philanthropy invests, we will never be able to dig ourselves out of the hole.”
Christie Ulman, president of the Sequoia Climate Foundation, which focuses on reducing emissions in part by transitioning to clean energy, said she is supporting her grantee organizations and partners at COP to support ambitious renewable energy and other pollutant reduction goals. like methane.
“We are also there to encourage and mainstream the fossil fuel phase-out agenda,” she said of her organization’s role at the summit. Along with dozens of other philanthropic funders, Sequoia announced a $450 million commitment to focus on reducing methane and other pollutants over three years.
Last year, Sequoia and some of the same funders pledged $500 million over three years to accelerate the transition to clean energy sources in low- and middle-income countries. So far, Ullman said a coalition government has granted 40% of the pledge, or about $200 million.
Ulman said that the investments are aimed to support the plans and projects that countries have already made in relation to energy transitions and she hopes that additional funding will follow.
The Bezos Earth Fund has pledged $100 million to support a plan by Pacific Island nations to protect and sustainably manage marine ecosystems. Bloomberg Philanthropies has also made commitments to protect oceans, transition to clean energy and support cities to adapt to climate change.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has long focused on food insecurity by developing tools and technology to help farmers adapt to climate change, announced a new pledge of $100 million along with the United Arab Emirates, which pledged another $100 million. Some of those funds will go to CGIAR, an agricultural research group, which the Gates Foundation has supported with more than $1 billion in grants over time.
“No other effort to adapt to climate change will have a greater impact,” Gates said in prepared remarks, from CGIAR.
The Gates Foundation and other funders also pledged a collective $770 million to expand the work of a fund set up by the UAE to end neglected tropical diseases, called the Reaching the Last Mile Fund.
Sands, from the Global Fund, recommended that the existing global health architecture be used as much as possible to reduce the burden on health systems in individual countries and called for swift action in the short term as climate change increases health inequalities around the world.
“Essentially what it’s doing is making the most vulnerable and least able to access health services even more vulnerable and even less able to access health services,” a he said.
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