The Baku to Belém Roadmap was set up as an initiative by the Baku and Brazil presidencies to respond to the question left hanging at COP29:
- how to scale climate finance to US$1.3 trillion per year by 2035 -
The Roadmap released ahead of COP30 continues to envisage a large role for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) in the delivery of climate finance, recognising that many finance actors sit outside the official UNFCCC process. It states the importance of improving coordination across the whole landscape of financial actors — governments, MDBs, Public Development Banks (PDBs) and others. It also recognises the need for improved transparency in the delivery of climate finance and the importance of MDBs strengthening partnerships with PDBs.
However, this outsized role proposed for MDBs does not respond to the concerns around their inadequate contribution to climate mitigation and just transition to date. The mentions of MDB reform in the Roadmap focus predominantly on MDB balance sheets and mobilising private finance, without considering other elements of MDB reform that are vital for them to play a legitimate role in climate action.
The ‘private-sector-first’ approach adopted by many governments and MDBs has been discredited, including by the World Bank’s chief economist, and has also been shown to play a part in prolonging fossil fuels.
The Roadmap speaks of “acting in fairness, equity and solidarity”. For MDBs to be able to deliver climate finance that follows these principles, their reform must go beyond figures. MDBs cannot maintain their current unfair governance structures, their contribution to deepening debt for developing countries, the lack of transparency in their current climate finance accounting, and their continued financing of fossil fuels (US$7 billion of MDB finance went to funding fossil fuels between 2023 - 2024). Ending the use of public finance for fossils is vital to respond to the climate crisis and ensure economic stability, as the vast majority of new renewable energy is far more cost-effective than fossil fuels, and will not leave countries with stranded assets or fossil-related debt.
Developing countries that bear the brunt of climate impacts — as witnessed last month when Hurricane Melissa ravaged the Caribbean — should not be expected to ‘attract investment’ at all costs. The onus must be on developed countries to lead provision of high quality public finance for climate action. Global North countries can’t hide behind MDBs to evade their responsibility to pay their fair share on fair terms.
Questions also remain about how this Roadmap, which lies outside of the formal UNFCCC process, will be incorporated into negotiations at COP30 and how it could be implemented. The proposals in the Roadmap are presented as ‘potential measures’ and are non-binding rather than formal commitments.
Reactions from members of the Big Shift Global coalition:
Ellenor Bartolome, Policy, Campaigns, and Communications Lead, Philippine Movement for Climate Justice: “Climate finance is already too little and too late, now further eroded by placing higher responsibility on MDBs, as if the same institutions that fuel the crisis can suddenly reform themselves. We won’t be fooled by the same old debt traps, conditionalities, privatization of public services, and fossil fuel dependence disguised as climate solutions. The roadmap makes clear that their priority is not the people and the planet. It is to reap more profit by syndicating deeper injustice at the expense of the Global South. Climate finance is reparations for decades of wealth and resource extraction from the South to the North. There should be no more delays and illusions that a broken system will fix itself. We need a system change, not another reform.“
Shereen Talaat, Founder and Executive Director, MENAFem – MENA Feminist Movement for Economic, Development and Ecological Justice: “The Baku to Belém Roadmap repeats the same colonial logic that keeps the Global South trapped in debt while claiming to deliver climate finance. Feminist and ecological justice demand a transformation of global financial governance — not another round of balance-sheet engineering that expands the influence of MDBs. MDB-led finance has already deepened debt, commodified nature, and excluded women and frontline communities from decision-making. Real fairness and solidarity require debt cancellation, grant-based climate finance, and democratic reform of IFIs so that countries in the Global South can act on climate without mortgaging their futures.”
Karabo Mokgonyana, Senior Campaigns Associate, Power Shift Africa: “The Baku to Belem Roadmap risks repeating the same broken promises of past COPs if it continues to prioritise balance sheets over people. Real climate finance reform means dismantling the unequal power structures within MDBs, ending fossil fuel financing, and ensuring that public finance flows to those most affected by the climate crisis, not to profit-driven intermediaries. A just transition cannot be built on debt or dependency. If fairness, equity, and solidarity are to be more than slogans, developed countries must stop outsourcing their obligations and deliver genuine, grant-based finance for a liveable future.”
Rebecca Thissen, Global Advocacy Lead, CAN International: "The Roadmap report released today feels more like a sketch than a compass. It brings new passengers onto the COP - such as MDBs and IFIs —but it fails to chart a clear route or provide the tools to reach the USD 1.3 trillion destination in a just and equitable manner. Scaling up public finance and creating fiscal space for developing countries should have been central, yet the proposals risk circling back to the familiar ‘private finance will save us’ terrain. Without fresh ideas, clear action points and real commitment to justice and equity, this road simply risks being full of detours and dead ends.”
Mariana Paoli, Global Advocacy Lead, Christian Aid: “The Baku to Belem Roadmap is a missed opportunity to provide real finance solutions that are desperately needed to address the increasing climate crisis in the Global South. While it recognises the connection between the debt crisis it provides short sighted recommendations that will actually hinder, not help developing countries. Its obsession for private finance and over relying on the likes of the World Bank and MDBs not only perpetuates the power of developed countries but also means climate decisions are based on profits and not the needs of vulnerable people”.
Friederike Strub, Finance Campaigner, Recourse: "The Roadmap’s overall narrative entrenches “business as usual”: diluting rich countries’ obligations for direct finance provision to the Global South while further centring MDBs and a myriad of private finance de-risking tools; championing false and unambitious “solutions” like debt for climate swaps, carbon markets and voluntary lending principles rather than comprehensive debt workout and a UN framework convention on sovereign debt; and qualifying any signals to other actors like IFIs and central banks as working “within their mandates” rather than spelling out how these mandates need to change. In the end, it’s mostly another laundry list of technical fixes in line with the Wall Street Climate Consensus and the G20’s MDB reform narrative without a meaningful political vision of the systemic financial architecture reform required to enable climate action at scale and shift the colonial economic dynamics destroying climate and ecosystems."
Jon Sward, Environment Project Manager, Bretton Woods Project: "It is welcome that the Roadmap calls for a manyfold increase in grant finance, and recognises the potential of an expanded role for non-debt creating instruments including IMF Special Drawing Rights in helping to achieve a whole-of-economy transition. However, while the Roadmap acknowledges the net outflow of funds from the Global South to private creditors in recent years, and the MDBs’ relatively poor track record of mobilising private finance, it nevertheless doubles down on private finance flows - catalysed by MDBs - as the engine of climate action. Given current threats to the MDBs’ climate work - which in any case remains misaligned with climate and economic justice agendas - and Wall Street’s continued heavy investment in fossil fuels, taking this road is a leap of faith not backed by evidence. We need a clearer roadmap about how to achieve the public investment at scale required to avert climate catastrophe."
Fiza Naz, Gas Campaigner, Big Shift Global: "The Baku to Belem Roadmap overlooks a core contradiction in climate finance — that Multilateral Development Banks continue to channel billions into fossil gas projects while claiming to drive climate solutions. Such investments not only undermine climate goals but also trap developing countries in mounting debt and fossil dependence under the guise of ‘transition’. True fairness and solidarity demand an immediate end to public finance for gas and other fossil fuels, with resources redirected toward renewable, community-led energy systems that build resilience instead of deepening debt."