With foreign aid budgets being slashed around the world, global south countries and their partners are reimagining how to find funds to meet their climate adaptation and mitigation needs.
The 30th U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP30, is currently taking place in Belém, Brazil. There, global south countries, United Nations agencies, and climate activists are highlighting the huge gap between what global north donors have promised in funding and what has been delivered. According to a recent U.N. Environment Program report, costs for climate adaptation for developing countries will reach up to $365 billion per year by the mid-2030s.
Deficit-laden global north donors are unlikely to change course in the short term. Thus, global south countries need new strategies to mobilize resources at home to close the climate finance gap. Yet to do so effectively, they need a fairer international corporate taxation system to bolster their own resources to battle climate change.