Total philanthropic giving saw a sharp increase in the area of climate change mitigation in 2021, outpacing the increase in overall philanthropic giving for the year, a report from the ClimateWorks Foundation finds.

The report, Funding Trends 2022: Climate Change Mitigation Philanthropy  (19 pages, PDF), found that total philanthropic giving grew an estimated 8 percent to $810 billion in 2021, and the total focused on climate change mitigation (between $7.5 billion and $12.5 billion) increased 25 percent. But while giving to address climate change showed a significant increase, it still represents less than 2 percent of global philanthropic giving overall. Other leading environmental funding areas included clean electricity (11 percent of total climate change funding), forests (9 percent), and food and agriculture (9 percent); those with the fastest funding growth were forests and carbon dioxide removal (69 percent and 62 percent increases, respectively). In addition, a combined category of governance, diplomacy, and legal was the top-funded enabling strategy.

The report also revealed that in 2021, the regions that received the most in foundation funding for climate change mitigation were the United States and Canada ($810 million) and Europe ($435 million), together representing two-thirds of country- or region-specific funding, with the other one-third supporting climate action in the rest of the world. While Latin America saw its funding double, and funding to Africa increased by 50 percent, these areas combined still represented less than 10 percent of total foundation funding.

“It’s striking how little foundation funding is going toward mitigating climate change in many major emerging countries and regions where emissions are increasing,” said Surabi Menon, vice president of global intelligence for ClimateWorks Foundation and an author of the report. “Achieving global climate goals will require that philanthropy both continue to fund climate mitigation strategies of current major emitting countries, while also providing much more funding to as many emerging countries as possible to support their low-carbon transitions in the years ahead.”

“Far too many people are already experiencing the devastating impacts of the climate crisis caused by a dependence on fossil fuels,” said ClimateWorks Foundation president and CEO Helen Mountford. “Philanthropy needs to break through the 2 percent funding barrier if it is to do its part to keep the world aiming for a 1.5° C future. A 25 percent annual increase in giving is encouraging, but philanthropy needs to accelerate its efforts even more and move funds faster to the places that need them the most to give people and the planet a fighting chance.”

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