The greatest bottleneck in climate action today is not money or technology, but human capability: the skills and institutions that turn finance into real-world progress. This is an area where philanthropy can make a meaningful impact. Where, in other words, philanthropies can find their “planetary best buy”.

Planetary Best Buys: Why Climate Philanthropy Should Back Human Capability

Surprising as it might seem, in some ways, the last decade has seen the global climate movement enter its most hopeful phase. Climate philanthropy has made significant strides. Public awareness in the climate crisis has surged. Renewable energy has expanded at record pace. Emissions are plateauing or falling in key jurisdictions. 

But the global headwinds against change are blowing stronger than ever. International financial support for climate and environment is in decline, squeezed by geopolitical instability and fiscal tightening. According to the OECD, official development assistance dedicated to environmental protection fell by 8% in real terms between 2021 and 2023. Traditional donor governments face mounting domestic pressures, and the broader aid landscape is tilting toward crisis response rather than long-term transformation.

All of this raises a critical question: how can the limited resources that are available—and particularly those from philanthropic actors—be deployed to greatest effect? In a world of hard choices and finite funding, what are the “planetary best buys”?

Finding the sweet spot

“The best bets for climate and nature philanthropy are those with systemic leverage”, explains Dame Tamara Finkelstein DCB, ex-Permanent Secretary of the UK’s Environment Department. “Interventions that unleash cascading, compounding impacts.” 

Indeed, there is a sweet spot where strong market tailwinds align with short-term policy wins in a way that creates visible, near-term results while laying the groundwork for systemic change.

We already know, for example, that well-designed public–private partnerships (PPPs) can unlock substantial private capital to mobilise investment for climate action. In India, the National Solar Mission galvanised approximately US $2.88 billion in investment across 63 projects; and the SDG Indonesia One blended finance platform has successfully mobilised US $3.29 billion in commitments from 38 partners.

And new technologies clearly have a role to play, too. It’s rapidly becoming clear that investment in AI can address the planetary crisis with cascade effects that extend far beyond individual applications. 

But these opportunities can mask an important truth. People are the delivery system for climate progress. It is people—whether in city halls, ministries, civil society, or smallholder farms—who design and execute policy, scale technology, manage infrastructure, and implement adaptation. They are the critical interface between ambition and action.

No investment lands better in the sweet spot than investment in human capability itself.

Climate Finance and the Skills Unlock

For examples of the unlocking role that human skills can play, we don’t need to look further than climate finance. Funds exist, but they cannot be deployed by officials fast enough or at scale. Indeed, 65% of government officials say that they have never received any climate-related training.  

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the largest multilateral fund dedicated to climate action. By mid-2023, it had approved $12.8 billion in projects, but less than 40% of that money had actually been disbursed. The bottlenecks here are not financial, but human. “National-level approval processes are slow and under-resourced,” explains Finkelstein. “Many accredited entities lack the institutional capacity to manage large-scale projects. And skills shortages persist in planning, procurement, monitoring, and reporting.”

This conundrum is not unique to the GCF. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has pledged to deliver more than US$100 billion in cumulative climate finance from its own resources by 2030. Yet uptake across many developing member states remains uneven. The Asia-Pacific Climate Report: Catalyzing Finance and Policy Solutions (2024) estimates that adaptation requires US$102–431 billion annually, yet only about US$34 billion was mobilised in 2021–2022. 

Across both these examples, progress is in fact not being delayed by insufficient money, but by the inability to absorb or disburse it. With the right training programmes, reformed approval processes, and empowered local institutions, locked capital could be released. 

And new technologies clearly have a role to play, too.  “AI can help us navigate the complex bureaucracies that exist for good reasons but too often slow down delivery,” explains Jaime de Bourbon de Parme, climate envoy for The Netherlands. It can accelerate approvals, streamline reporting, and reduce administrative friction. But the base of everything remains human capability—because only skilled people and strong institutions can translate funding into real-world progress."

Working Together: Global and Local, Strategic and Adaptive

The good news is that there are existing mechanisms available to urgently address these problems. Indeed, philanthropies are uniquely positioned to plug these capability gaps. Unlike governments, they can move swiftly and strategically to support training academies, curriculum development, mentoring schemes, and institutional twinning. Unlike multilateral lenders, they can support experimentation and risk-taking. In short: they can urgently build the missing human infrastructure.

Of course, philanthropies cannot go it alone. Coordinated funding around shared priorities—especially in complex areas like civil service capacity—amplifies impact and reduces risk.

Global and local funders bring different strengths: local knowledge and trust meet global tools and networks. Together, they can build solutions that are both scalable and legitimate.

Shared metrics matter too. Tracking outcomes—not just inputs—helps drive real, lasting change.

A New Ethos for Philanthropy

The future demands a new philanthropic mindset. One that prizes endurance over attribution and capability over headlines. One that sees its mission not as a temporary gap-filler, but as a builder of permanent public capacity.

This is not abstract idealism. It is the hard reality of the climate and nature crisis. “The world will not meet its climate and nature goals,” says de Bourbon de Parme, “unless more people, in more places, can deliver solutions. Too often we only ask for finance, but the bigger ask is often capacity building and technology transfer—because with those in place, the funding will follow.”

Capability is the great enabler. It is the hidden hinge on which progress swings. Philanthropies that embrace this truth can become architects of transformation, not just funders of projects.

The best bets are often quiet, technical, and long-term. But they are also, ultimately, the most transformative.

In this decisive decade, with time short and stakes high, building planetary capability may be the last best bet we have.