Reaching $1.3 trillion annually in external finance for developing country climate action might seem like a steep mountain to climb, requiring a seven-fold increase from today's levels.

That target — committed to at COP29 in 2024 — must be reached by 2035. That means we have 10 years to dramatically scale financial flows.

This year's climate summit (COP30) had mixed results, including some ups and downs for finance outcomes. But three important developments help show the way forward.

1) A Trio of Strategic Approaches Showed a Path Toward $1.3 Trillion

A series of documents launched at and around COP30 lay the groundwork for systemic change and clarify potential next steps.

First, the arrival of the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap (B2B Roadmap) to $1.3T — and the related Circle of Finance Ministers report — provides a shared framework for action on climate finance. In addition, the International High Level Expert Group published its fourth report on climate finance. Previous reports have broken down the need for climate finance and how private, public, domestic and international flows may compare. This time, the IHLEG focused on "delivering an integrated climate finance agenda" — an indication that actors are focusing on making the parts work together as a system — and concluded that reaching $1.3 trillion was "entirely feasible."

The five levers laid out in the B2B Roadmap are grants, concessional finance and low-cost capital; fiscal space and debt sustainability; transformative private finance and affordable cost of capital; capacity and coordination for scaled climate portfolios; and systems and structures for equitable capital flows. Each of these levers must be activated to their full potential.

These themes were evident across discussions both inside and outside the formal negotiations at COP30. Its closing agreement, known as the Global Mutirão decision, decided to "urgently advance" actions towards $1.3 trillion — and "notes" the Roadmap. This may reflect the short timeframe that negotiators had to digest the Roadmap, which was released just days before the summit. Further outreach in 2026 will be crucial.

Taken together, the Roadmap, Circle of Finance Ministers report and IHLEG report introduce systemic shifts on the scale needed. As befits an "implementation COP," they move us from diagnosing the shortfall in finance to acting on it.

2) Awareness of Adaptation Finance Was Dialed Up a Notch

At COP30, countries reaffirmed that the goal to provide approximately $40 billion in adaptation finance to developing countries by 2025 will be met and agreed to at least triple this amount by 2035.

Several new initiatives announced at the summit will contribute to scaling up adaptation finance. Multilateral development banks (MDBs) launched the Caribbean Debt-for-Resilience Joint Initiative, led by Inter-American Development Bank, Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, and Caribbean Development Bank. This effort aims to expand debt-for-resilience swaps; improve coordination among governments, MDBs and the private sector; and strengthen transparency and monitoring standards to boost resilience investments.

Philanthropies are also stepping up their contributions to adaptation finance. The Climate and Health Funders Coalition committed $300 million to implement the Belém Health Action Plan, including climate-resilient health systems and disease prevention. Agricultural resilience received a boost with the launch of the Resilient Agriculture Investment for Net-Zero Land Degradation (RAIZ) platform, designed to mobilize investments for restoring degraded agricultural lands. The Gates Foundation pledged $1.4 billion to support smallholder farmers.

On the other hand, finance pledges from developed countries were limited. Several countries announced renewed contributions to the Adaptation Fund, but the total funding amount of $135 million was modest compared to the minimum replenishment target of $300 million expected for 2025.

3) Country Platforms Gained Significant Traction

Country platforms are emerging as a key tool to help drive finance toward national climate and development goals. They have the potential to align diverse stakeholders — including investors — around transformational investments and complementary policy reforms, and to do so in a way that is country-led. (WRI has discussed their promise at length elsewhere.)

Some initiatives similar to country platforms have existed for years, such as the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) platforms in Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa and Vietnam. However, the concept broke through in a major way at COP30, with 13 countries announcing plans to develop country platforms, plus a joint platform for the Caribbean. These will be supported through the Green Climate Fund's Readiness Program and include diverse geographies, economic contexts and themes that go beyond the energy sector to include adaptation, nature-based solutions, transport and industry. Major economies like Colombia, India and Nigeria are among the new participants. This adds to a number of other countries that have already put forward country platforms, including Bangladesh, Brazil and Egypt.

Country platforms hold great potential for unlocking and scaling finance because they provide a way of translating high-level commitments contained in nationally determined contributions (NDCs) into specific investments. They also provide the enabling policy environment required to mobilize finance from different stakeholders. Investors will stay away from certain geographies if the policy environment is unfavorable or bankable projects are unavailable. Platforms provide a venue for coordinating reforms and building pipelines with key stakeholders at the table.

Where More Work Is Needed

One way to read the finance developments at COP30 is to focus on the possibilities that were opened. From new analysis, new frameworks, new consensus and new platforms emerges the possibility that this year's impact will measure much more significantly when the fruit of these changes has flowered. That depends, of course, on following through in 2026. Three things are key:

1) Translate the new frameworks into action

All three of the recently released documents — the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap, Circle of Ministers Report and newest IHLEG analysis — provide useful frameworks and actions that, taken together, could help us reach the $1.3 trillion goal. The documents are not perfect, nor were the processes that created them. But each could play a valuable role in detailing the steps that governments and investors can take to help deliver finance where it's most needed.

Throughout 2026, the COP30 Brazil Presidency will convene an independent expert group to refine data and develop concrete financing pathways to reach $1.3 trillion. We should not let these documents sit on a shelf, but instead use the momentum they created to push for the policy, institutional and financial changes needed to shift financial flows.

2) Boost public finance, especially concessional finance

The Roadmap, Circle of Ministers report and IHLEG report all emphasize the continued importance of international public finance. For example, all three call for increased concessional finance, including expanding special drawing rights (SDRs) or new sources of finance, such as Global Solidarity Levies. IHLEG suggests that MDBs will be responsible for mobilizing most of the $300 billion and much of the $1.3 trillion in climate finance for developing countries by 2035, acting alongside other public finance institutions, including national development banks, bilateral development finance institutions, and Vertical Climate and Environmental Funds.

Some significant initial commitments were made to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility and secretariat, totaling almost $7 billion if conditions are met. Yet the fund initially aimed to raise $25 billion from governments before focusing on a $10 billion target, ultimately falling short of either mark. Others that were considering pledges — both governments and major MDBs, such as European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, European Investment Bank and more — will need to step up and make contributions. The fund will need this initial capitalization by concessional sources to then go to markets for the additional $100 billion. (For more, see WRI's statement and article on TFFF.)

3) Lay the groundwork for private finance expansion

The trio of documents also emphasize the need to rapidly grow private sector investments in emerging markets and developing economies. According to the IHLEG, half of the $1.3 trillion will need to come from private finance — sixteen times the level of existing flows — and a significant share of domestic resource mobilization will likely need to come from the private sector as well. This will require a transformation in market frameworks, including creating enabling conditions (such as regulatory certainty), deepening local financial markets, managing foreign exchange risk, and ramping up instruments like guarantees.

A set of principles was presented ahead of COP30 to encourage greater interoperability between the more than 50 national and regional sustainable finance taxonomies. This will help countries attract private capital and reduce transaction costs — especially critical since fewer than one-third of developing countries currently have taxonomies in place. COP30 also hosted the first-ever Asset Owners summit, with institutions holding $10 trillion in assets identifying how to contribute to the $1.3 trillion target. It was clear that while leading investors are allocating capital to the transition, this is not happening at the speed or scale required and is geographically uneven, with some regions currently left behind.

Many efforts to mobilize private finance are still being led by the public sector. One development was the new Public Development Bank Guarantee Hub (PDB Guarantee Hub). This will expand private investment in emerging and developing economies by building guarantee capacity for PDBs at both regional and national levels, with a goal of deploying up to $10 billion in guarantees. Another public-led effort came from the Brazilian central bank and Inter-American Development Bank, with the announcement that IDB will help Brazil hedge against foreign exchange risk. Foreign exchange risk can drive up the cost of capital in countries that foreign investors deem too risky to invest in.

What's Next on the Road to $1.3 Trillion?

The coming year offers opportunities to promote the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap and accompanying documents across countries and stimulate further practical initiatives to bring its strategy to life. The Roadmap itself listed 15 follow-up actions for key players, such as the IMF, MDBs, credit rating agencies, the insurance sector, prudential regulators and leading investors. Coordinated action will be important given that the U.S.-led G20 in 2026 will no longer be a forum for financial ministry coordination on climate. Growing alliances, such as the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action, which includes more than 100 countries, will play a pivotal coordinating function. Progress toward the actions listed in the Roadmap will be a key test to assess how the financial architecture is actually reforming to address the climate finance needs.