Multiple donors and international organizations announced commitments to climate finance efforts directed at developing countries during London Climate Action Week, signaling growing attention toward emerging economies that nevertheless falls far short of the need.

London’s signature climate event, which ended Sunday, was an opportunity for environmental diplomacy. Business and political leaders announced hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, coupled with panels that highlighted equitable international funding to countries least responsible for—but most affected by—the climate crisis.

Bloomberg Philanthropies, for instance, pledged $285 million to help expand clean energy infrastructure across developing economies and counter a well-financed oil lobby.

Patricia Espinosa, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a statement released by Bloomberg that the money aims to fill a financial gap in plans and implementation.

“The emerging economies driving global energy demand are also those with the greatest potential to power themselves with renewables,” Espinosa said. “Many of them have set ambitious clean energy targets, and there is no one blueprint for how the transition happens. It must be adjusted to the realities of each country, its companies, and its people. What they do share is a need for an effective enabling environment and the infrastructure to translate those targets into deployment at scale.”

But the combination of private and public investment only scratches the surface of what is needed, said Reimund Schwarze, an environmental economist with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. The U.N.’s 2024 and 2025 international climate summits set a goal of $1.3 trillion flowing to developing countries per year for climate mitigation and adaptation by 2035.

That amount should be divided between private investment and multilateral development banks, according to a November 2025 report released by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

But as the United States pulls back from international aid, development finance is “drying up,” Schwarze added, since international institutions like the World Bank are not making up the difference.

Read the full article about climate investments for developing countries by Ajani Stella at Inside Climate News.