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Why coalitions of wealthy nations should fund others to decarbonize

Failure to agree on global grants to help low- and middle-income countries to achieve net-zero emissions cannot be the end of the story. An urgent solution is needed.
By
  1. Patrick Bolton

    1. Patrick Bolton is research director of the Centre for Climate Finance and Investment and professor of finance at Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, UK.

  2. Ottmar Edenhofer

    1. Ottmar Edenhofer is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, and professor of climate economics and public policy at the Technical University of Berlin, Potsdam, Germany.

  3. Alissa Kleinnijenhuis

    1. Alissa Kleinnijenhuis is a visiting assistant professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, and at Imperial College London, UK.

  4. Johan Rockström

    1. Johan Rockström is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and professor in Earth-system science at the University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.

  5. Jeromin Zettelmeyer

    1. Jeromin Zettelmeyer is director of the European economic policy think tank Bruegel, Brussels, Belgium.

Children plan in a residential area outside the closed Komati Power coal fired power station in South Africa.

A coal-fired power plant in Komati, South Africa, which was decommissioned in 2022 as part of the country’s plans to phase out fossil fuels. Credit: Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty

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In Baku last November, parties to the COP29 United Nations climate summit failed to put in place enough climate finance to keep global average warming below the 1.5 °C limit established in the 2015 Paris agreement.

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Nature 639, 574-576 (2025)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00779-9

References

  1. Bolton, P. & Kleinnijenhuis, A. M. COP29: The Economic Case for a New Common Quantified Goal of Climate Finance (NCQG) at Scale (E-axes Forum on Climate Change, Macroeconomics, and Finance, 2024).

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  2. ESABCC. Scaling Up Carbon Dioxide Removals (European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, 2025).

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  3. Nordhaus, W. Am. Econ. Rev. 105, 1339–1370 (2015).

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  4. Adrian, T., Bolton, P. & Kleinnijenhuis, A. M. The Great Carbon Arbitrage. IMF Working Paper 2022/107 (International Monetary Fund, 2022).

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  5. Bolton, P., Kleinnijenhuis, A. M. & Zettelmeyer, J. The Economic Case for Climate Finance at Scale. Policy Brief 09/2024 (Bruegel, 2024).

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  6. Rennert, K. et al. Nature 610, 687–692 (2022).

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  7. Bilal, A. & Känzig, D. R. The Macroeconomic Impact of Climate Change: Global vs. Local Temperature. NBER Working Paper W32450, rev. 1 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024).

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Supplementary Information

  1. Supplementary tables and figures

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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