Thirty-five leading philanthropies, including the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the IKEA Foundation, committed $300 million at COP30 Health Day to accelerate climate-health solutions targeting extreme heat, air pollution, and climate-sensitive infectious diseases. Brazil's Health Minister Alexandre Padilha warned that 3.3–3.6 billion people live in highly vulnerable climate areas where hospitals face a 41% risk of extreme weather disruption, declaring, "if you don't adapt, we will kill people". The Belém Health Action Plan aims to thrust adaptation centrally into climate negotiations and global stocktaking, though health remains marginalised in COP decisions despite the potential to save tens of millions of lives through reduced heat, pollution, and improved food security.​

A new report by the ClimateWorks Foundation found philanthropic adaptation funding jumped 120% from 2021 to reach $870 million in 2024—a record high but representing only a fraction reaching vulnerable communities most impacted by climate change. The 55% increase in foundations making adaptation grants masks severe geographic inequities: Africa received a total of $900 million between 2021 and 2024, while Asia-Oceania—home to over half the world's population—received less than 10%, and Latin America less than 3% of total funding, highlighting underfunding in some critical regions. The $365 billion adaptation finance gap facing developing countries dwarfs philanthropic scale, requiring sustained alignment across public, private, and philanthropic actors to bridge needs.​

African and Arab groups called for postponing the Global Goal on Adaptation indicators, arguing that the proposed metrics unfairly shift adaptation finance responsibility onto developing countries by counting domestic budgets as international support. The concern reflects Paris Agreement tensions: indicators including national spending blur lines between countries' own resources and international support owed to them, risking further burdens on cash-strapped governments already spending 0.95% of budgets on adaptation, reaching 4% of GDP in nations like Botswana and Seychelles. The African Group of Negotiators seeks two-year negotiation periods to shape realistic, fair indicators reflecting national capacities, while observers note that postponement won't stop countries from using them informally for progress tracking.​

Climate Investment Funds announced $100 million from Germany and Spain for ARISE (Accelerating Resilience Investments and Innovations for Sustainable Economies) to help developing countries "turn climate risk into opportunity" and strengthen adaptive economic capacity. The multilateral programme, nested within the World Bank's $13 billion CIF vehicle, embeds resilience into development strategies while mobilising multilateral development banks, climate funds, and private capital. ARISE aims to unlock new finance sources and bridge the adaptation gap through integrated economic-resilience strategies, though the $100 million commitment underscores philanthropic and bilateral efforts struggling against significantly larger global needs.

The Gates Foundation announced $1.4 billion over four years to advance climate adaptation for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, addressing the gap where less than 1% of global climate finance reaches food systems despite farmers producing one-third of global food. World Bank research suggests targeted adaptation investments could increase GDP by 15% in some regions by 2050, while WRI estimates every $1 generates $10 in economic and social benefits within a decade. Key initiatives include expanding AIM for Scale's AI-powered SMS forecasts to 100 million farmers globally by 2030, scaling climate-resilient crop varieties, soil health technologies, partnerships with Novo Nordisk Foundation, and hyper-local weather alerts via TomorrowNow, reaching 5 million Kenyan farmers with plans for Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia expansion.

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