While global climate talks stall, grounded innovation moves forward
Acumen’s takeaways from London Climate Action Week and the Financing for Development Conference in Seville.
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This June, when negotiators gathered in Bonn to prepare for COP30, the outcome was a familiar story: stalled negotiations, minimal consensus, and widening divides between countries on how to finance climate action. Yet again, progress on global climate goals felt frustratingly out of reach.
But in other forums, including London Climate Action Week (LCAW) and the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD4) in Seville, a different kind of climate conversation was unfolding. It was less about high-level pledges and more about grounded action rooted in local realities, financial innovation, and strategic collaboration.
Acumen was there — not just attending, but hosting side events and contributing to a broader push alongside funders, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and practitioners to bridge capital gaps and advance real-world solutions.
The mood was different from years past. Yes, the challenges remain steep: Official development assistance is declining, the SDG financing gap is growing, and geopolitical tensions and political shifts are eroding climate unity. But there’s also a shift underway. Stakeholders across the capital continuum, including philanthropies, pension funds, private investors, and government institutions, are not just talking. They’re testing new models, forming new partnerships, and reimagining how capital flows.
Here are four takeaways that gave us hope and direction for what’s possible.
1. Unlocking local capital is essential
Across both LCAW and FFD4, one message kept surfacing: In the face of declining aid and rising financing needs, unlocking local capital is a necessity.
That means moving beyond traditional capital flows to ask how local financial systems can power local solutions. From pension funds in Ghana and Zambia to local banks lending to SMEs, there’s a growing interest in how to catalyze the capital that’s already there.
This shift is underway. Several countries are experimenting with country-led financing strategies to coordinate efforts across government, philanthropy, and private finance. This would create the regulatory and enabling environments needed to attract and deploy local investment at scale.
But to make it work, we must find ways to de-risk investments, remove policy barriers, and build the financial infrastructure that can bring capital where it’s needed — into the hands of entrepreneurs and communities driving climate and development solutions.
2. Capital needs to be designed for entrepreneurs
At LCAW and FFD4, conversations focused on how to make blended finance work better for the people and enterprises it’s meant to serve.
We often heard that capital is still too fragmented, mismatched, and slow. Entrepreneurs, especially in agriculture and early-stage climate ventures, face real barriers in accessing the working capital, insurance, and local currency solutions they need to grow resilient businesses. Acumen was among the investors and entrepreneurs calling for investment capital to be redirected toward business innovators in the Global South in a letter to the COP30 presidency.
One theme that stood out was intentionality and designing capital that reflects reality. That means structuring deals with the right mix of capital, at the right time, with eyes wide open about what’s actually reaching the entrepreneur. By the time blended finance reaches a local business, how much has been lost in transaction costs? Is it still concessional enough to catalyze early-stage growth?
At Acumen’s LCAW side event, “From Soil to Scale: Financing the future of resilient agrifood systems,” we explored these topics through Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund (ARAF) and with SunCulture, BII, and Citi. We know early-stage equity is critical for helping climate entrepreneurs move from grant-funded pilots to investment-ready ventures. But how can we also create new models that lower their cost of capital, de-risk investments, and provide patient, flexible financing to bridge the “missing middle?” Blended finance should not just be a tool for mobilizing capital, but a strategy for empowering local entrepreneurs to build lasting solutions in some of the hardest places to grow.
3. Systems-level change requires systems-level collaboration
Across both LCAW and FFD4, one message came through loud and clear: No one can do this alone. Participants spoke candidly about how institutional silos across governments, investors, DFIs, and philanthropic actors are slowing progress and holding back scale.
The path forward lies in smarter collaboration. That means co-designing capital structures, aligning strategies, standardizing diligence, and delivering capital in ways that reflect the complexity of the challenges we’re collectively trying to solve. In other words, partnerships that go beyond memorandums of understanding to actual shared action. Co-hosted with FMO, Acumen engaged in a lively conversation at FFD4 on “Revolutionizing Upstream Finance” and intentionally aligning actors to collaborate and create markets.
There was also a call to reframe the narrative. Instead of fixating on the $4 trillion SDG financing gap, what if we focused more on the models that are already working and how to replicate them across regions and sectors? We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to identify what works, simplify where we can, and scale with intention.
Scaling what works starts with a common understanding of what success looks like. At LCAW and FFD4, several conversations pointed to the urgent need for shared, credible measurement frameworks to help us track and compare impact. Initiatives like ARIC and IPCC’s push for 100 core metrics are a step in the right direction, and more convergence, not fragmentation, will be key.
4. Resilience is a present imperative
At LCAW, adaptation was front and center. With climate impacts accelerating and warming trajectories becoming more certain, the mood has shifted. This is no longer about future-proofing. It’s about responding now. From agroforestry to insurance, climate-smart infrastructure to supply chain resilience, examples were shared of how adaptation can deliver both impact and returns. The challenge is making the case at scale and rallying around metrics that prove it.
Data emerged as a critical enabler: not just to measure resilience, but to design for it and build evidence that it is working. How can data be bundled, shared, and aggregated in ways that de-risk smallholder farmers, inform insurance products, and improve efficiencies across capital providers while respecting privacy and intent? Our report, Roots of Resilience, highlights two case studies on farmers’ resilience. In partnership with IDH and ISF Advisors, Acumen co-hosted an event at LCAW on evidence-backed investment strategies in smallholder agriculture. Measuring what matters, from climate resilience outcomes to risk-adjusted returns, is essential for attracting and scaling capital.
Resilience also reframes how we think about risk, from physical climate risk to supply chain disruption, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem collapse. These are not distant possibilities. They are material realities that businesses are already contending with, and that small and growing enterprises in emerging markets must be equipped to face. Ideas surfaced around nature-based finance, closing funding gaps for fragile states, and greater investment in insurance and financial tools that help businesses and communities withstand climate shocks.
Looking ahead
It’s easy to feel discouraged when global negotiations stall and traditional funding channels contract. But the energy at LCAW and FFD4 told a different story, one of grounded innovation, collaboration, and real-world momentum. Across sectors and regions, people are testing new models, building unexpected partnerships, and pushing capital to where it can drive real change. For the first time, the International Court of Justice has strongly declared that countries must act to protect people from the “urgent and existential threat” of climate change.
The road ahead is long, and traditional channels of climate finance remain slow to change. But from London to Seville, we saw signs of real momentum driven not by declarations, but by the people closest to the problems and bold enough to build what’s next. Acumen is proud to stand with them, investing in what works, challenging what doesn’t, and helping shift the system from the ground up. We look forward to continuing the conversation at Climate Week NYC.
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Roots of Resilience
This report spotlights two social enterprises helping farmers build resilience through training, innovative inputs, and stable market access.
