From Fiji to Antalya: The Unfinished Business of Climate Finance

At the Pacific Pre-COP in Fiji, one figure cut through familiar calls for greater climate ambition: more than$16 billion has been committed to Pacific countries since the Paris Agreement, but over $5 billion remains undisbursed. Not every undisbursed dollar is necessarily overdue; projects have implementation timelines. Still, the distinction between a commitment and money reaching a community goes to the heart of climate finance. A system can appear generous on paper while remaining slow and difficult to use.

The Fiji discussions made that problem harder to ignore. The Taku Pakasoa Declaration placed vulnerable island countries, adaptation and the ocean–climate nexus in the spotlight. Australia introduced an Access to Finance Statement and Action Plan to simplify procedures. Additional pledges of about US$15 million went to the Pacific Resilience Facility, a regionally owned mechanism, although its total pledges remain below $200 million against a $500 million initial target. They advanced the conversation without resolving questions of scale, terms or responsibility — issues that must now shape COP31 decisions.

Three separate gaps now need to be distinguished:

1. Provision gap: Too little capital is available relative to identified needs. 

2. Delivery gap: Committed resources can be delayed by accreditation, project preparation and fragmented donor requirements. 

3. Suitability gap: Finance may arrive as debt when grants are needed, or with tenures and prices that make otherwise valuable investments unviable.

Faster approvals solve the second problem, not necessarily the first or third.

That distinction is missing from much of the debate over headline targets. COP29 established a goal of at least $300 billion annually for developing countries by 2035, with developed countries taking the lead; the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap describes pathways towards $1.3 trillion a year in external finance flows. 

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These figures differ in status and scope, but neither alone reveals how much funding will be additional, how affordable it will be or whether it will reach sectors with limited commercial returns. 

Determining scope

Counting mobilised capital without examining its terms can conceal future debt pressures. Even a concessional foreign-currency loan can become expensive when projects earn revenue in local currency and exchange rates move against borrowers.

Adaptation shows why this matters. UNEP estimates that developing countries will need $310–365 billion annually for adaptation by 2035, compared with international public adaptation flows of$26 billion in 2023. Coastal protection, heat-resilient public health systems and flood prevention generate enormous avoided losses, but often little revenue with which to repay lenders. 

Private finance may complement public funding where projects generate identifiable cash flows; it cannot be assumed to replace grants for essential public goods. The financing question is therefore not only how to attract more investors, but which risks and costs should remain on public balance sheets. An excessive focus on bankability could systematically favour projects generating revenue over those delivering the largest social returns.

India's intervention in Fiji sharpened this issue. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav argued that stronger ambition must be accompanied by finance, technology transfer and capacity-building, while respecting nationally determined transition pathways. 

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India's emphasis on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, concerning developed countries' obligation to provide financial resources, asks who should bear the cost of delivering collective ambition. Its parallel reference to Article 6 recognises the potential of carbon markets to mobilise resources. 

Yet these channels perform different functions: revenues from verified emissions reductions may support mitigation projects, whereas adaptation measures protecting vulnerable populations often require predictable public finance. Treating them as substitutes risks shifting responsibility without solving the investment problem. While Article 9.1 establishes a responsibility, it does not resolve the disputed questions of quantum, predictability or burden-sharing.

Nor does the Global South have a single financing requirement. Pacific island states need grants and highly concessional support to protect assets and livelihoods exposed to existential risks. India and other large emerging economies need long-tenor capital for grids, storage, industrial decarbonisation and clean mobility, alongside adaptation resources. Debt-stressed developing countries may find even concessional borrowing difficult. A credible architecture must allocate instruments according to investment economics and fiscal capacity, not assume that leverage ratios alone measure success.

Upcoming challenges

Antalya therefore faces three practical tests:

1. Can contributors report commitments, approvals and actual disbursements separately, alongside timelines and reasons for delay? 

2. Will climate-finance reporting disclose grant shares, borrowing costs and debt implications rather than aggregate volumes alone? 

3. Can public finance be deployed strategically as grants for non-commercial adaptation, guarantees or first-loss support for viable projects facing specific risks, and patient capital where long payback periods deter lenders? 

Domestic financial institutions also need the capacity to originate and aggregate investible projects. Guarantees should be assessed by whether they mobilise genuinely additional investment, not simply transfer risks from private investors to taxpayers.

Fiji helped bring these questions into the negotiating frame. Now Antalya must determine whether the response goes beyond another affirmation of ambition. For the Global South, the real measure of climate finance is not the sum announced at international meetings, but the cost, timing and usefulness of capital when it reaches the ground.

 

Dr. Ria Sinha is a Senior Fellow at Chintan Research Foundation. Views expressed are personal.

[Edit: Bhasker Tripathi, Shaswata Kundu Chaudhuri; Production: Arkatapa Basu]