Climate Finance Tracker to Visualize Financing for Climate Solutions

Over four trillion dollars are estimated to be needed annually to meet global climate objectives by 2030, according to the Climate Policy Initiative. However, it is not clear how quickly and to what degree private and public finance will meet this need nor how this money will be deployed on the ground.

In collaboration with Impact Alpha and Vibrant Data Labs, we are building a climate finance tracker focused on the amount of grant and private financing climate solutions are receiving in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Inspired by a U.S.-based model, the climate finance tracker uses machine learning to visualize the climate finance landscape across sectors and countries. In a few clicks of a button, we can have a very rich picture of how climate finance is being deployed in LMICs and how equitably.

The Climate Finance Tracker is Fully Adaptable

The tracker focuses on the recipients (or the ‘doers’), not the sources of funding to determine if our climate finance aspirations are turning into action. With this climate finance tracking tool, investors and donors can find gaps, view market trends, and better identify ways that public funds can mobilize private investment.

This tool’s applications are easily adaptable to various goals. For instance, international donors and development finance institutions will be better able to catalyze private investment in under-resourced climate actions. On the other hand, private investors and foundations will find co-investment opportunities and learn from one another. National governments will attract more sustainable investments for the implementation of nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans by seeing which of their peers are creating strong enabling environments. Finally, entrepreneurs can identify types of funders and investors that would be interested in their climate solutions.

The Climate Finance Tracker is Publicly Available  

Accessibility is an important component of the climate finance tracker. Interactive investment tools should equitably catalyze and deploy capital for climate action and create an equitable opportunity for information sharing.  Our tool is open source to provide much needed insights to as many of the “hands” working on climate issues as possible. Our goal is to make it easier to make better decisions about where and how climate solutions are deployed.

Launching the Climate Finance Tracker for LMICs

We shared a prototype of the climate finance tracker for LMICs at the 27^th Conference of the Parties (COP27) for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, as highlighted in this video conversation. The prototype focuses on Africa and Latin America, using data from Convergence, Global Private Capital Association, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Africa Big Deal, Crunchbase, Candid, and ImpactAlpha’s deal flow.

Now, we’re looking for help in building out the prototype.

Financing the work of climate change is an all-hands-on-deck initiative. One challenge is identifying data sources and establishing data partnerships to access the data. We are looking for collaborators to point us in the right direction to find more datasets that can improve and expand the tracker with real time data for all countries across the world.

Are you a collaborator? Do you have data to share? Reach out to us at Climate Finance Tracker - ImpactAlpha. You can also sign up for updates and be the first to know when the Climate Finance Tracker for LMICs is live. It’s a tool that we can all benefit from.