In a new commentary for Climate Home News, Janet and coauthor Joytsna Uppal analyze next steps for multilateral climate philanthropy. “Global climate progress sits at the center of an acute crisis,” they note, “as the multilateral order that structured international climate cooperation for three decades frays at the seams." At this precarious moment, they ask what climate funders should be doing, and they provide four recommendations for catalytic philanthropic support.
They base the commentary on an examination of the state of environmental multilateralism through an extensive literature review and interviews with climate leaders from around the world - policymakers, UN officials, regional actors, philanthropic leaders and advocates. Their perspectives reinforced a sobering finding: more consequential than any single country's efforts to undermine the multilateral system is the deeper question of whether that system is still fit for purpose.
“Climate philanthropy must do more than fill gaps left by retreating governments; it must ask harder questions about whether gap-filling is the right role at all - and prepare to catalyze the emergence of something new.”