By Carlos de Freitas, FMDV
Climate finance
COP30 in Belém confirms a real turn from designing frameworks to organizing delivery, with finance now clearly framed as the main enabler. The Mutirão decision fixes a 1.3 trillion USD per year trajectory by 2035 for developing countries, calls for a manyfold increase in support and the tripling of adaptation finance, and sets up a two-year work programme on climate finance with a high-level ministerial round table. The guidance given to the SCF, GCF, GEF, Adaptation Fund and the new Loss and Damage Fund points toward simpler and faster procedures, stronger direct access, and a significant push on adaptation windows and locally led approaches. Together with the Veredas Dialogue and Xingu Finance Talks on Article 2.1(c), this creates a permanent political space to align all finance flows with climate goals while keeping support obligations at the core and explicitly recognizing the role of cities and regions in multilevel climate action.
Despite important advances on scaling finance and aligning flows, COP30 still offers only minimal and indirect references to subnational governments, leaving the architecture for predictable, programmatic territorial finance largely undeveloped.
From COP30 to COP31, the LGMA Constituency will use this new space to move from recognition to architecture. For example, by positioning urban-inclusive country platforms and country platforms for localizing finance, territorial investment plans and national and subnational development banks as the core intermediaries that connect the Global Implementation Accelerator, the Belém Mission to 1.5 and the new Article 9.1 work programme with real project pipelines. We will work with Parties and financial institutions to design subnational access windows, embed multilevel governance in NDC and NAP implementation, and shift from scattered project access to predictable, programmatic financing for cities and regions.
Loss & Damage
Belém stabilizes the loss-and-damage architecture around three pillars: The Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM), the Santiago Network and the new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). The Mutirão decision links “urgent and enhanced action and support” on loss and damage to tripling finance outflows by 2030 and to the broader ramp-up of climate finance. The WIM review turns the focus to delivery and coherence: A stronger Executive Committee on action and support (including non-economic losses and compound risks), a regular flagship report connecting science, policy and finance, and clearer complementarity between the WIM and the Fund. The Santiago Network is mandated to shift decisively from set-up to assistance on the ground, prioritizing technical support for particularly vulnerable communities, locally led approaches, displacement issues and the needs of vulnerable groups, while improving accessibility and explicitly involving Indigenous Peoples, local communities and local governments in knowledge and outreach.
The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is now operational in start-up mode through the Barbados Implementation Modalities, with grant finance available to all developing countries via direct budget support and a Board tasked with designing rapid disbursement, small-grants windows and a long-term replenishment process from 2027. In parallel, the Adaptation Fund expands its envelope and opens a regional locally led adaptation window, making the continuum between adaptation and loss-and-damage support more concrete for territories.
Even as COP30 strengthens the loss-and-damage architecture, the formal texts provide only limited and non-systematic integration of local and regional governments, despite their frontline role in assessing and addressing losses on the ground.
From COP30 to COP31, the LGMA will use this architecture to argue for explicit subnational access windows, alignment between the FRLD, Santiago Network, adaptation funds and country platforms, and transparent tracking of how much loss-and-damage support actually reaches local governments and communities, so that local and regional governments shape both the understanding of loss and damage and the solutions financed to address it.
