The website of the Loss and Damage Youth Grant-making Council.
[This is an excerpt from an article from The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.]
Climate justice financing as philanthropy
It is clear that climate justice may not be delivered through the existing architecture of climate finance, which is inadequate and does not address the true needs of developing countries. Public climate finance must step up. However, a promising vehicle of climate finance could be climate philanthropy, offering a range of financial and non-financial benefits. Financially, philanthropies are wealthy entities and have been upping their contributions: OECD (Citation2015) estimated that philanthropic contributions to development finance as USD 29.73 billion in 2013, up from USD 3 billion in 2003. In 2020, philanthropic grants alone topped USD 9.6 billion (OECD, Citation2023a). Climate philanthropy in particular is steadily increasing: in 2021, climate mitigation philanthropy from foundations and individuals totalled between USD$7.5 and 12.5 billion; approximately 3 billion of this came from foundations which represents a 40% increase from the $1.9 billion foundations gave in 2020 and triple the $900 million donated in 2015 (Desanlis et al., Citation2022). Philanthropies have the financial and regulatory flexibility to directly fund resilient communities and influence policy with quicker processing time and fewer complexities. Foundations are not bound to political government cycles, nor are they under pressure to deliver immediate financial returns to private shareholders (OECD, Citation2015). Crucially, philanthropies play an important role in challenging the prevailing norms and activities addressing climate change. Foundations can embrace risk-taking endeavours centred around scientific inquiry, health, and environmental concerns, conducted in collaboration with community and international organisations, aiming to protect the environment and alleviate the effects of climate change (Yirenkyi & Vodden, Citation2024). Their scope can vary widely, allowing more communities to have access to critically needed funding. Philanthropic organisations can best perform in their funding roles by being catalytic and being the first ones to shift direction. This private financial mechanism is key in unlocking progress, though it cannot be understated that their overall contributions to climate are low; in a study conducted by BEA-I, looking at 12 US-based environment grantmakers, it was found that of the roughly one billion dollars that they granted, only 1.3% of funding went to justice-focused organisations (Baptista & Perovich, Citation2020). Private finance also cannot overtake public finance, as it may fall victim to the common traps of unrealistic and non-participatory goals for poor and vulnerable communities, prioritise mitigation over adaptation, and favour richer countries over developing countries (Carty, Citation2013).
Introduction to a special edition of the Round Table Journal – Climate justice and the Commonwealth: Justice or order?
Special edition of the Round Table Journal on climate justice and the Commonwealth
Currently, very little funding is available to youth-led organisations in the climate change space. A report by the Commonwealth in partnership with the UNFCCC youth constituency detailed worrying findings regarding climate finance for youth (Ansaram & Tyagi, Citation2022). While much of the money being provided to youth led climate engagement was in the form of grants, the small size of the grants placed significant constraints on the contribution to climate action. Most grants were provided by international organisations or United Nations agencies with limited participation by the private sector. Meanwhile, allocation of climate finance for youth was skewed towards mitigation actions. Another study, commissioned by the Youth Climate Justice Fund, found that a shocking 0.76% of grants from the largest climate foundations globally are actually disseminated to youth-led climate justice initiatives (Youth Climate Justice Study, Citation2022). In total, these are worth around US$14.2 million per year. To bring the percentage to 1% would require an additional $4.5 million annually. Organisations based in the United States receive 16 times more funding on a per capita basis than the global average. Funding to climate projects, let alone youth climate projects, is severely constricted with much potential for improvement.
The nascent field of youth philanthropy represents a rich opportunity to develop both youth and philanthropy. In the world of finance, it is fairly young, formally emerging onto the scene in the mid-1980s in the United States, and has now spread to a number of developed countries. It is not a monolithic movement but one that encompasses different ideas about what roles young people can play in society (Rosen & Sedonaen, Citation2001; Tice, Citation2002). Rosen and Sedonaen (Citation2001) explored the various dimensions of what can be considered YP, including young people giving time, talent, and money to their community, and efforts to include young people in traditional organic philanthropy, and they attempted to define youth philanthropy initiatives as ‘those in which youth develop knowledge of and participate in the formal practice of philanthropy, specifically grant-making’. Benefits include cultivating a sense of leadership, developing useful skills, and advancing equity by including youth voices (Seller, Citation2018). So what does youth philanthropy shape up like in the framework of climate finance?
The Youth Climate Justice Fund commissioned the above study in 2021 to inform the creation of their fund. They are a youth-led, youth-owned and movements-driven fund which employs youth-led participatory grant-making. At the time of writing, they have completed one funding cycle and have begun their second cycle. In their first cycle, they received over 1800 applications from around the world, indicating a great demand for funding. They have improved their model to include capacity development with grantee partners. In their first cycle, they disbursed US$500,000 across 40 grantee partners from 24 countries. Their projects mainly focused on thematic areas like equitable climate action, resilience building, and sustainable behaviour, but also looked at sectors like just transition, biodiversity, food systems, and energy (YCJF, Citation2024).
The Global Youth Climate Action Fund (GYCAF) is the first of its kind climate fund dedicated to financing youth-led climate action around the world. In 2022 with funding from The Horne Family Foundation, the Global Youth Climate Action fund launched its first open call for USD$1000 microgrant applications and received over 1000 applications (Global Youth Climate Action Fund [GYCAF], Citation2023). Grant criteria were constructed to focus on sustainable agriculture, clean energy, oceans, capacity building, nature-based solutions and tech and innovation. The programme was accompanied by a storytelling initiative to feature innovative projects, and a climate literacy webinar series in the lead-up to COP27. Findings from this micro-grant programme included a lesson that investing in the capacity of young people is critical, and has tremendous returns.
Christianne Zakour is an environmental scientist, specialising in loss and damage and climate peace and security.
