Bridging the climate finance gap, from global pledges to local realities

By Aditya Verghese 

The recent devastation caused by Cyclone Montha—87,000 hectares of cropland submerged, along with collapsed bridges, culverts, and roads across Andhra Pradesh—has once again underscored the mounting threat of climate-related disasters. Similar scenes unfolded in Jamaica, where Hurricane Melissa displaced thousands and damaged critical infrastructure, and across Southeast Asia, where typhoons Kalmaegi and Bualoi left hundreds dead and thousands homeless. These events form a sobering pattern: climate-driven extreme weather will continue to intensify, disproportionately impacting those already living on the margins.

Despite the billions pledged under global climate finance mechanisms, the most vulnerable communities remain underprepared, uninsured, and inadequately protected. Funds committed through international agreements move slowly, often constrained by bureaucracy and stringent eligibility requirements. As a result, informal workers, small farmers, and low-income coastal or urban households rarely experience direct benefits from these flows of finance.

This global debate will surface prominently in Belém, building on the COP29 pledge by developed nations to mobilise at least $300 billion by 2035. Negotiators are expected to endorse the ‘Baku-to-Belém Roadmap’, which aims to raise $1.3 trillion per year by 2035. Yet the real challenge is not only mobilising finance but reshaping its structure. The current system tends to prioritise large-scale national projects, sidelining the everyday adaptation needs of households and local economies. While the UNFCCC adaptation agenda and the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage acknowledge the importance of helping vulnerable countries cope with climate impacts, much of the conversation still revolves around frameworks and pledges rather than practical implementation.

Bridging this gap requires reimagining how climate finance reaches the ground. Instead of merely responding to losses, we need to co-create solutions with communities and design programmes that build resilience where climate shocks are most deeply felt. A paradigm shift is needed—one that delivers not just national-level interventions but regional and community-level support. Climate-relevant social protection, such as disaster insurance, early recovery support, and adaptive local finance, remains far too uncommon.

Civil society organisations can play an essential role in this transformation. Positioned between the state and markets, they are well placed to test innovative models, rooted in community relationships, that offer practical pathways for implementation. Blended finance—combining philanthropic, private, and public capital—allows CSOs to experiment, de-risk new ideas, and build evidence that can inform broader policy scaling. In doing so, they strengthen state capacity and help ensure that global climate finance aligns with the lived realities of marginalised communities.

One example is a pilot recently launched by SEEDS: a parametric insurance programme for coastal communities in Tamil Nadu’s Cuddalore district, where repeated cyclones have inflicted sustained losses. Implemented with the New India Assurance Co. Ltd., the local non-profit Visions Global Empowerment India and supported by philanthropic capital, the programme provides a fast and transparent financial safety net. Unlike conventional indemnity insurance, parametric insurance triggers payouts automatically once predetermined conditions—wind speed and proximity to a reference point—are breached. Affected households receive direct benefit transfers within three weeks, bypassing lengthy claims assessments.

Equally significant has been the emphasis on trust-building through community consultations, allowing local residents to help design the insurance triggers themselves. This participatory process ensures that the model captures local priorities and remains contextually relevant. The pilot offers a valuable opportunity for SEEDS and policymakers to evaluate whether such mechanisms can be deployed quickly, remain community-centric, and effectively address cyclone-related losses—conditions essential for wider adoption.

As climate impacts escalate, urgency is unavoidable. But urgency should not compel a retreat into standardised, universal models that overlook the diversity of lived experiences. Building resilience at scale requires an institutional ecosystem that encourages innovation and supports a range of approaches tailored to the realities of vulnerable communities. Ultimately, the question is not only how much finance is mobilised, but how imaginatively, inclusively, and effectively it is applied.

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The author is Head, Centre of Excellence—Public Finance at the Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS)