Money, money, money: With COP17 and COP31 on the way, what’s the state of play on climate finance?

It’s almost time for biodiversity’s big moment in Yerevan, Armenia, at COP17, with COP31 and the rest of the climate conference circus rolling into Türkiye just a few weeks later.

So, before the season of COPs gets well and truly underway, let’s take a look at some of the key trends across climate and nature finance. There’s some genuinely encouraging progress to report, although unfortunately – as is so often the case with international climate action – the gap between what governments have promised to do and what they are actually financing remains vast.

With tightening budgets, political uncertainty, and challenging developments in the international aid and climate finance world at hand, the path to achieving major global climate goals looks set to be long and winding. But it’s not all bad news, from growing momentum behind new forest finance mechanisms like the Tropical Forests Forever Facility to mounting evidence of the economic benefits of protecting nature, there are reasons for cautious optimism. As COP17 and COP31 approach, the challenge is to build on that progress and turn promising developments into investment at scale.

The finance gap to 30x30 remains a major barrier for nature protection

First, the good news. A comprehensive new assessment of global progress towards 30x30, the international commitment to protect and conserve at least 30% of the planet by 2030, suggests that the target remains within reach, at least on land.

The 30x30 Global Assessment, published in September by Campaign for Nature alongside the Ocean Protection Gap Report from Together for the Ocean, found that existing government commitments could increase the proportion of the world’s land and island waters under protection or conservation from approximately 20% today to 27% by 2030. That’s up from around 17% in 2022, when the 30x30 target was first agreed. More than 50 countries and territories now report protecting or conserving at least 30% of their land, with countries including Brazil, Australia and Canada making significant progress in recent years. Not too shabby, although there’s still plenty of work to do.

However, the picture is rather less encouraging when it comes to the ocean, where just 10% is currently designated for protection, and existing national commitments would bring that figure to only around 12% by 2030. Worse still, only 3.5% of the ocean is currently assessed as effectively protected, a useful reminder that drawing lines on a map and delivering real protection are rather different endeavours.

And then, of course, there’s the money. The Assessment estimates that achieving 30x30 will require approximately $100–180 billion annually, compared with current spending of just $24 billion. The ocean financing gap is particularly stark, with around $1.8 billion spent annually against an estimated need of $16 billion. Delivering 30x30 will require governments to dramatically increase investment and ensure that funding reaches the communities who protect and manage many of the world’s most important ecosystems.

A new Nature Positive Initiative launch offers another step towards making nature action more measurable. Its State of Nature Indicators and Metrics distil more than 600 existing metrics into four core indicators, giving businesses and investors a common basis for understanding changes in nature. Integrated into updated TNFD and SBTN guidance, the indicators also help connect assessment with target-setting and reporting. That kind of consistency can help organisations track whether action is delivering results, though it cannot replace the public and private investment needed to close the funding gap.

With COP17 just around the corner, the findings also provide a timely reminder of the importance of making complex conservation finance challenges accessible to wider audiences.

Forest finance gets moving – but not quickly enough

There’s a slightly more encouraging story emerging from the world of forest finance, although significant challenges remain.

In September, the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership published its first Forest Finance Roadmap Progress Report, examining progress across six financing solutions designed to help close the estimated $66.8 billion annual forest finance gap.

The report found that finance is beginning to move across several mechanisms. At least $473 million was mobilised for jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD+), which rewards countries and regions for reducing deforestation and forest degradation across entire landscapes, between July 2025 and June 2026. Meanwhile, development banks, development finance institutions and climate funds mobilised at least $1.73 billion for the forest bioeconomy, including approximately $1.16 billion in private capital.

Crucially, the report also highlights how these financing mechanisms can support wider economic and development priorities, from creating jobs in sustainable forest industries to generating revenues for countries and communities protecting their forests. It’s an important shift in the forest finance conversation, demonstrating that protecting forests and supporting economic development need not be competing priorities.

The Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), Brazil’s star initiative of last year’s COP30 in the Amazon, continues to be a key focal point for forest finance advocates. TFFF is designed to provide long-term financial rewards to countries that keep tropical forests standing, and a recent contribution from the UK to invest £400 million in the facility brings commitments towards its initial financing tranche to at least $7.3 billion, against a target of $10 billion by the end of 2026. TFFF has yet to begin making payments to forest countries, which are expected to begin from 2028 or 2029, but the new commitment from the UK is a helpful sign of continued momentum beyond COP30.

Stormy weather ahead?

Unfortunately, just as the need for climate and nature finance becomes increasingly difficult to ignore, the political enthusiasm for providing it appears to be waning.

In September, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration has been pressuring multilateral development banks to abandon climate finance targets and loosen restrictions on financing fossil fuels. In June, the World Bank retired its target of directing 45% of financing towards projects with climate benefits, while the Inter-American Development Bank and Asian Development Bank have reportedly been considering similar moves. Both banks have maintained that their commitment to climate action remains in place.

This is not an especially encouraging development, given the central role that multilateral development banks play in financing climate action. According to the OECD, MDBs accounted for approximately half of public climate finance provided by developed countries in 2024, making them critical to delivering international climate finance commitments.

The UK has scaled back its international climate aid commitments, while analysis cited by the Financial Times suggests Germany is unlikely to meet its target of providing €6 billion annually. These cuts come as developing countries are looking to wealthy nations to deliver on their commitment to mobilise at least $300 billion annually by 2035.

Meanwhile, Brazil, home to much of the Amazon rainforest and a leading champion of new forest financing mechanisms, is heading into a closely contested presidential runoff between incumbent President Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro on 25 October. The outcome could have significant implications for the direction of Brazilian environmental policy, and potentially for its leadership on international forest finance.

The outlook isn’t entirely bleak. As climate policy think tank E3G pointed out in a recent analysis, development banks have opportunities to increase lending by making better use of their existing balance sheets and mobilising more private investment, even without securing large new injections of capital.

But there remains an uncomfortable contradiction at the heart of all this. The international community has spent years agreeing increasingly ambitious climate finance goals, and some of the institutions expected to help deliver them are now facing pressure to reconsider the very targets intended to keep countries accountable.

The cost of inaction continues to rise

While governments debate what they can afford to spend on climate action, the costs of failing to invest are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Take Nepal. In August, devastating glacial floods killed more than 1,400 people and caused an estimated $4–5 billion in reconstruction costs, equivalent to roughly a tenth of the country’s GDP. Nepal contributes just 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet now faces an enormous bill for a disaster to which climate change clearly contributed.

The country has requested $20 million from the UN’s Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, established specifically to help vulnerable countries recover from climate disasters. Unfortunately, as Chatham House recently highlighted, the Fund has received only around half of the $822 million pledged to it, and currently lacks a mechanism for rapidly responding to emergency funding requests outside scheduled application windows.

Meanwhile, Pacific leaders have criticised the slow delivery of international climate finance following a visit to Tuvalu, where one coastal adaptation project took eight years to implement.

What does this mean for climate advocates, campaigners, and communicators?

As we approach COP17 and COP31, the economic case for protecting nature and tackling climate change has never been stronger. New analysis suggests that restoring one billion hectares of degraded land could generate $1.8 trillion in annual benefits, while achieving 30x30 could deliver $450 billion in annual GDP gains by 2050. These are hardly insignificant sums. And there is real progress to celebrate. According to the OECD, international public biodiversity finance increased by 94% between 2018–20 and 2023–25, while private finance rose by 73%.

For climate communicators, the challenge is to make the economic case for action impossible to ignore. Protecting forests, restoring ecosystems and investing in climate resilience are not simply environmental priorities, but economic opportunities and necessities. We also need to move the conversation beyond ambitious pledges to focus on what finance is actually delivering, where it is going and who is benefiting.

With COP17 and COP31 approaching, there’s no shortage of important stories to tell. The challenge is to ensure that those stories help build the political will, public understanding, and financial momentum needed to turn commitments into action.