Almost one year ago, several members of the Convention on Biological Diversity, or CBD, stood at the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome and celebrated the operationalization of the Cali Fund, a United Nations-backed mechanism that aims to raise billions annually from industries that utilize genetic data for conservation purposes. The fund aims to get $1 billion per year. Today, it has accrued just $1,000.
This is an extreme version of an increasingly common story. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, developed to provide grants and concessional finance to developing nations heavily impacted by climate-related disasters, aimed to secure $100 billion per year by 2030. So far, it has around $591.42 million. The Adaptation Fund, meant to finance projects that help vulnerable developing countries adapt to the adverse effects of climate change, strived for a minimum of $300 million by the end of 2025 to finance projects in 2026. It received about $135 million in new pledges. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility, or TFFF, a new investment fund to pay forested countries to keep their forests standing, aimed for an initial funding round of $25 billion. In 2025, it received around $6.7 billion.
Without their hoped-for cash, these funds can still function — but far below the capacity they had originally intended. Still experts said that there’s a lot of cash sitting unused in many “zombie funds” that could be put toward more actionable projects. And once money is given, it’s tricky to get it back out.