What Have Philanthropies Pledged So Far During the UN Climate Summit?

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After a year of extreme heat and historic floods, the first week of this year’s United Nations climate summit (COP27) was somewhat overshadowed in the U.S. by the midterm elections. But for those not glued to election results, last week saw a deluge of philanthropic announcements associated with the summit, though not all of them were what they seemed at first glance. 

A few hundred million here, a billion-plus there — pretty soon, all these commitments seem to add up to a lot of money. And yes, some of the announcements reveal important new commitments, partnerships or initiatives. But a look behind the headlines reveals that some of the announcements reflect totals reached by combining existing funding plans from multiple philanthropies, with only unspecified new funding. Others represent new spending plans for past pledges, typically from last year’s meeting in Glasgow, rather than actual new money.

All the same, the news from the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, where COP27 is being held, offers welcome insight into where philanthropic money will go in the coming years, and what topics some of the field’s movers and shakers are likely to prioritize. There is also one brand-new but already controversial initiative that, while not the largest in terms of philanthropic dollars, could shape how the world confronts climate change over the remainder of this decade.

While this is not a comprehensive list, here are some philanthropic announcements to note from the first week of COP27. 

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 

Let’s start with the biggest number of all. America’s largest foundation pledged $1.4 billion over four years to help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia confront climate change. Gates has been cutting big checks for this work for more than a decade, and this indicates that funding on that front will both continue and grow. About $434 million of the sum is considered new funding beyond the foundation’s previously planned spending, according to a factsheet

The money aims to boost local innovation, and will support work including new uses of technology, changing livestock farming practices and supporting women smallholder farmers. For the latter goal, the foundation will expand its partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development. To promote innovation, it is working with partners to double the budget of the food-focused CGIAR climate science research partnership, to which it committed $315 million at last year’s summit.

Forests, People, Climate

Thirteen major climate funders have joined forces to create a new collaborative called Forests, People, Climate in the hope of mobilizing an additional $1.2 billion over the next five years to end tropical deforestation and kickstart sustainable development. That sum will add to $780 million the group of funders has already committed toward that goal, which grew out of a multinational declaration last year in Glasgow. 

The funding aims to both protect forests and support the Indigenous peoples and local communities who safeguard them, partly by working with homegrown funding platforms such as the soon-to-be-launched Shandia. Other goals include changing the finance environment and passing new policies. Many leading U.S. climate funders are part of the collaborative, including the ClimateWorks, David and Lucile Packard, Ford, Gordon and Betty Moore, Grantham, Klarman Family, and William and Flora Hewlett foundations, as well as the Ballmer Group and Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. Note that the millions of dollars several of those funders have committed toward a $1.7 billion Indigenous land protection effort are not counted toward this goal.

IKEA Foundation 

Last year, the foundation of the Swedish furniture giant pledged €1 billion over five years to fight climate change. Its announcement last week did not add to that total, but it did provide some details. The foundation has already set aside 40% of that total for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet, which was launched at last year’s COP. Now the IKEA Foundation has commissioned a report that hints at where the remaining €600 million will go.

According to the report, assembled by analysis firm Systemiq and the think tank RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute), alternative proteins, electric scooters and motorcycles, market mechanisms for cutting methane emissions, and financing a just energy transition are among the “highest-impact opportunities” for global philanthropy in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There’s no word yet on what organizations the IKEA Foundation will back, but as the foundation’s CEO Per Heggenes said in a press release, it hopes its research will inform not just its choices but those of its peers. 

Bezos Earth Fund

Like the IKEA Foundation, Jeff Bezos’ fund made a big pledge last year and shared some specifics last week. Back in Glasgow, the Amazon founder committed $1 billion to landscape restoration, among other announcements, but details were limited. Fast forward to this year’s conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, and the fund has announced that it will send a small sliver of that sum — $50 million — to locally led restoration projects in Africa. The fund has now announced $400 million in grants from that pledge.

The new money backs a pair of projects, one in the Congo Basin — a past grant region for the fund — and the other in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley. The aim is to both support restoration and build the infrastructure for more funding, including creating monitoring systems. “We know that there are thousands of shovel-ready restoration projects across the continent, but insufficient training and funding to help these projects grow,” said the fund’s President Andrew Steer as he announced the funding at COP27. The fund will partner on this work with the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100).

Energy Transition Accelerator

Could private companies fund the world’s energy transition? More than $2 trillion in clean energy investment is needed in the world’s poorer nations, according to the International Energy Agency, and wealthy nations are still dragging their feet on a promise of $100 billion in annual financing for such projects. The Energy Transition Accelerator sees an answer in carbon credits. Backed by a coalition of heavyweights in philanthropy, government and the private sector, the idea is to create a system to verify national reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that countries could use to sell credits to polluting companies trying to shrink their footprint. The hope is to raise $100 billion or more by the end of 2030. 

The plan is already controversial. It has attracted both major media attention and skepticism, both from front-line activists and major green groups. But it’s got a high-powered list of backers, and not just from philanthropy. The Rockefeller Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund announced it alongside the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry at COP27, with endorsements from major environmental groups (including the Environmental Defense Fund and RMI), leading corporations (PepsiCo and Microsoft) and nations (Nigeria and Chile). No dollar commitments were announced, but the two foundations have committed to supporting the design of the initiative.

Equitable Energy Transition

In the last major announcement from COP27’s first week, nine philanthropies announced a $500 million investment over three years to speed a “just and equitable energy transition” in low- and middle-income countries and invigorate economic growth. A spokesperson indicated the pledge will mix new funding and partners’ already-planned grantmaking on this topic, but did not provide specifics. The funding will be issued through existing regrantors and pooled funds, as well as by individual foundations, with each philanthropy making individual decisions on grants based on shared objectives, according to the spokesperson, who noted the effort has additional anonymous backers.

The group hopes it can shake loose a lot more money. “This commitment should be seen as a floor, not a ceiling, for what philanthropy can do to support a just and equitable future,” said Christie Ulman, president of the Sequoia Climate Foundation, one of the funders, in a press release. She also emphasized that the investment will not and cannot substitute for government funding. Other U.S. backers include the Ballmer Group, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Growald Climate Fund, High Tide Foundation and Three Cairns Group.