This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.
Author: Charlotte Edmond, Senior Writer, Forum Agenda
- Philanthropy is key to making progress – but very little of it is directed towards the climate, despite the scale of the climate crisis.As CEO of ClimateWorks, Helen Mountford has granted more than $1 billion to worthy projects in more than 50 countries.ClimateWorks is a key partner in the World Economic Forum’s GAEA initiative, which aims to unite philanthropic, public and private sector partners to help generate funds to tackle climate change and nature loss.
Over the course of years, philanthropy has been shown to be key to unlocking progress on many important areas – but just 2% of philanthropic funding globally is dedicated to climate-related issues.Given the enormous scale of the climate crisis and its widespread impact, climate philanthropy is seen as a vital way to access new sources of funding. It can bring together science, business, civil society and government to drive big change.It also offers a more agile approach, which can allow us to explore new areas and solutions to the climate crisis, bringing down the risk of future investments.
Climate philanthropy is a nimble tool
Because it is up to individuals and foundations to set direction rather than large corporations, they are often able to move more quickly, explains Helen Mountford, CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation.“Often what we see in the public sector or the private sector is these very strong rules and guidance. There will be processes that are quite thorough and often quite complicated to get through, particularly with public funding, to actually move the money to the ground,” she says.As a philanthropy platform, ClimateWorks has granted more than $1 billion to worthy projects in more than 50 countries. The foundation is also a key partner in the World Economic Forum initiative GAEA: Giving to Amplify Earth Action, which brings together philanthropic, public and private sector partners to help generate funds to tackle the climate crisis and nature loss.
How is the World Economic Forum fighting the climate crisis?
The Global Risks Report 2023 ranked failure to mitigate climate change as one of the most severe threats in the next two years, while climate- and nature- related risks lead the rankings by severity over the long term. The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Nature and Climate is a multistakeholder platform that seeks to safeguard our global commons and drive systems transformation. It is accelerating action on climate change towards a net-zero, nature-positive future. Learn more about our impact:
- Scaling up green technologies: Through a partnership with the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, and over 65 global businesses, the First Movers Coalition has committed $12 billion in purchase commitments for green technologies to decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.1 trillion trees: Over 90 global companies have committed to conserve, restore and grow more than 8 billion trees in 65 countries through the 1t.org initiative – which aims to achieve 1 trillion trees by 2030.Sustainable food production: Our Food Action Alliance is engaging 40 partners who are working on 29 flagship initiatives to provide healthy, nutritious, and safe foods in ways that safeguard our planet. In Vietnam, it supported the upskilling of 2.2 million farmers and aims to provide 20 million farmers with the skills to learn and adapt to new agricultural standards.Eliminating plastic pollution: Our Global Plastic Action Partnership is bringing together governments, businesses and civil society to shape a more sustainable world through the eradication of plastic pollution. In Ghana, more than 2,000 waste pickers are making an impact cleaning up beaches, drains and other sites.Protecting the ocean: Our 2030 Water Resources Group has facilitated almost $1 billion to finance water-related programmes, growing into a network of more than 1,000 partners and operating in 14 countries/states.Circular economy: Our SCALE 360 initiative is reducing the environmental impacts of value chains within the fashion, food, plastics and electronics industries, positively impacting over 100,000 people in 60 circular economy interventions globally.
Want to know more about our centre’s impact or get involved? Contact us.
Mountford believes these investments have been key to helping de-risk some of the innovative technological solutions to climate change for the public and private sector.“Where climate philanthropy can do the best is actually by being catalytic,” she says. “By really looking at where there are areas that are new that need to be explored further, where we can set some of the guidelines and approaches that can help the whole community move forward, and to be agile.“So as we see things shifting, often climate philanthropy can be the first to actually shift direction. If there’s a new crisis, a new opportunity that emerges, to really sort of lead the way.”
Despite the apparent advantages of climate philanthropy there is a distinct challenge with it too – there is simply not enough of it to go around.“Of course we need trillions of dollars to really deliver on the climate crisis and philanthropy will only ever be a small part of this,” Mountford says. “We see it as a small but mighty pea.”The other issue is that many philanthropists, even if they are interested in the climate, simply don’t know where to invest their funds for best effect.
The GAEA initiative is about identifying where the public and private sectors can come together to make a difference to the climate crisis, and where philanthropy will catalyse their progress.The investment is designed to help scale promising initiatives and accelerate action, helping to bridge an estimated $100 trillion funding gap.
While we are in a period of polycrisis, there is a risk that people look to tackle just one crisis at a time rather than looking at them in an interconnected way, says Mountford.“One of the things I very much aspire to is what Christiana Figueres [one of the chief architects of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement] has called stubborn optimism on climate. It’s optimism because we do have the solutions. We can do it. We’ve got human ingenuity, the ability to work together and do this. But the stubborn part is that it will not happen unless we all really work together and actually deliver that,” Mountford says.“So we’re not going to give up. We’re going to keep fighting and keep working towards really winning on climate.”This article is based on a conversation between Helen Mountford, the President and CEO of ClimateWorks Foundation, and the World Economic Forum’s Digital Editor, Linda Lacina.
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