Humanity is at a crossroads – a moment of great risk and great opportunity. One path leads to attractive growth and development; the other to great difficulties and destruction. As shown by each successive report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate change is occurring at a faster pace than previously anticipated, the impacts and damage are greater than foreseen, and the time for remedial action is rapidly narrowing.

This report of the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance is intended to provide a framework for finance for climate action, covering the overall needs for the comprehensive approach embodied in the Paris Agreement and UNFCCC. All the elements are necessary and urgent and most of the actions must start now; it is the science and the world’s perilous condition that set the urgency and timing.

The logic of this paper follows from the logic of delivering on the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Pact. The first part focuses on the purpose and necessary investment and actions, drawing on earlier work on the analysis of investments. The second part is about the scale and nature of the different forms of finance that are necessary and how they complement each other. The final part is on how the framework and the key elements described can be taken forward through our systems for international collaboration.