IDB Debuts New Climate Finance Initiative, UN Official Calls for Real-World Action, AI-Driven Weather Forecaster, and More

🗽That’s a Wrap on New York Climate Week!

It was wonderful to meet so many Climate Proof subscribers and supporters on the mean streets of the Big Apple last week. Thanks to all those who attended our events, and a warm welcome to the many new subscribers who have joined us in the aftermath.

Instead of a write-up of my reflections, how about a Climate Week NYC vibe-check from not one, not two, but seven leaders in adaptation finance, tech, and policy? Sounds good? Then check out this highlight reel from last Thursday’s podcast marathon👇

The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) has launched ReInvest+, a new initiative aimed at unlocking private climate finance for developing countries.

Under the program, IDB and partners plan to hoover up seasoned loans from local banks in developing countries, transform them into investment-grade securities with IDB guarantees, and flip the assets to global investors. In return, the local banks pledge to use the proceeds from the loan sales to invest in sectors that align with national development plans and climate goals.

“Institutional investors get the securities they want. Local banks get the liquidity they need, and national plans get financed,” said Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor to the President of the IDB, on a recent podcast explaining the initiative. “It’s incentive compatible. Local banks learn that there’s an eager buyer for lending aligned to nationally determined plans which delivers them earlier returns and lower funding costs. That makes them hungrier to lend to projects that align with national plans.”

An IDB-commissioned study estimates there’s a US$500bn pool of loans eligible for the ReInvest+ treatment in Latin America and the Caribbean alone — part of a potential US$3trn globally.

The IDB Group is calling on commercial and international banks to join the initiative by submitting proposals before October 24. As a neutral convener, the IDB will set transparent criteria and provide financial tech solutions such as foreign exchange insurance. Selected partners will be announced at COP30, where plans to scale up asset purchases over the next year will be detailed.

Brazil is pledging US$1bn for its proposed Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced Tuesday at a UN event in New York. The commitment makes Brazil the first contributor to the multilateral fund — which is looking to raise US$125bn to finance tropical forest conservation. The TFFF plans to invest for the long term in high-yielding fixed income instruments, and use the resulting cashflows to support anti-deforestation efforts in 74 developing countries. Brazil intends for its upfront investment to unlock an initial US$25bn in public and philanthropic funding, which in turn is expected to attract US$100bn from private investors. Countries including the UAE, Norway, China, and the UK have expressed interest in supporting the fund, according to those involved in the negotiations. (Reuters)

Pacific Island leaders opened a 15-month global fundraising window for the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a climate finance vehicle aiming to raise US$500mn for hardening vulnerable populations against rising climate risks. Early pledges include €5mn (US$5.9mn) from Germany and €3mn (US$3.5mn) from Ireland — bringing total commitments to date to US$166mn. The PRF is “Pacific-led, owned and managed”, according to a factsheet, and oriented towards “community-centered, transformative climate and disaster resilience financing.” (Pacific Islands Forum)

Nearly 90% of the world’s major ports face escalating climate hazards like flooding, heatwaves, and storm surges, according to a new report from TT Club, an insurer and risk management services provider, and consultancy Haskoning UK. This translates to over US$122bn in annual trade at risk. The report urges ports and logistics operators to take practical measures to advance their “resilience journey” over short-, medium-, and long-term time horizons. (TT Club)

New York Governor Kathy Hochul marked Climate Week with US$30mn in funding awards for climate resilience across the state. The money is being drawn from the US$4.2bn Environmental Bond Act — passed in 2022 — and is being distributed across 19 projects addressing issues from inland flooding to coastal resilience. Recipients include municipalities and non-profits like Save the Sound and Mohonk Preserve, with top awards going to flood-prone areas such as Rochester, Freeport, and Suffolk County. (New York State)

The Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance is looking to incubate eight climate finance vehicles targeting emerging markets, including solutions that channel private finance to adaptation in the Philippines, Brazil, India, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Selected proposals will receive tailored technical support and exposure to funders, with top performers eligible for pre-seed grants of up to US$250,000. Applications are due by November 9, 2025. (Climate Policy Initiative)

The Johnson & Johnson Foundation has pledged US$1mn to Americares to bolster global frontline health response. Announced at Climate Week NYC, the donation supports rapid deployment and preparedness efforts via Americares’ RISE program, which supports swift disaster responses to over 35 emergencies annually. (Americares)

The Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC) unveiled the three winners of its first-ever Accelerator program during New York Climate Week — all organizations focused on scaling climate finance capacity in emerging markets. One winner, Africa Adaptation Initiative, will grow its Adaptation Finance Academy to ensure African institutions lead and manage climate funds directly. Climate Compatible Growth’s Data-to-Deal model, credited with unlocking US$11bn for South American counties, will expand to align national climate pledges with bankable projects across Africa and Asia. The third winner, Transforma, plans to deepen its localized climate risk disclosure work across Latin America. GCBC is a Bloomberg-backed initiative dedicated to accelerating and scaling climate and transition finance capacity building for financial institutions and finance professionals. (GCBC)

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell used his keynote at New York Climate Week to urge a ‘step up’ in global climate action, arguing the world must bridge the gap between international pledges and real-economy transformation. 

He also pledged to release a status report on countries’ adaptation efforts, to bring clarity on how they can harden their populations and infrastructure against worsening extreme weather events. “[C]limate disasters are hitting every economy and society harder every year,” said Stiell. “So we need to step it up. And we need to step it up fast.”

Stiell also flagged AI as a potential catalyst for climate progress, calling on tech platforms to power AI with renewables and harness its promise to manage microgrids, map climate risks, and guide resilience planning.

With COP30 on the horizon, Stiell warned that climate multilateralism must continue to deliver. He called for strong outcomes: an ambitious new round of national plans and a credible roadmap to US$1.3trn a year in accessible climate finance. 

His wasn’t the only voice calling for greater action. At a UN General Assembly side event, UN Assistant Secretary-General Marcos Neto underscored the need to simplify access to climate finance and make it more predictable, especially for adaptation efforts. He called for support towards a joint Adaptation Package at COP30 that would establish a high-level commitment to dedicated financing and coordination around climate-proofing efforts.

President Donald Trump falsely called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in a rambling speech before the UN General Assembly last Tuesday. During his near hour-long screed, he criticized the European Union for prioritizing emissions cuts over economic growth and claimed the UN had repeatedly made false predictions about the consequences of global warming. (rev.com) 

Twenty-two state attorneys general and major city legal officers are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scrap its proposed reversal of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, calling the move unlawful, unscientific, and a direct threat to American lives. In a sharply worded comment letter to the agency, the officials argue that the EPA’s rollback defies Supreme Court precedent and the overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases endanger public health. The letter details the rising toll of climate impacts across the country and explains how the brunt of these are falling on vulnerable communities. The attorneys general warn that rescinding vehicle emission standards in particular would undo decades of progress on climate and air quality, imposing billions in health and disaster costs while undermining federal and state climate efforts. (New York State Attorney General)

California regulators have named more than 4,000 companies — many of them outside the state — that must comply with sweeping new climate disclosure laws. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released a preliminary list, including a majority of S&P 500 firms, for which disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks will be mandatory under state bills SB 253 and SB 261. Firms with over US$500mn in revenue must disclose how they’re assessing and managing climate-related financial risks, including physical risks, and their adaptation efforts. (CARB)

Analysis by health care foundation The Commonwealth Fund finds that Vermont, New York and Washington have the most climate-resilient health care systems among the 50 states, and West Virginia, Kentucky, and Louisiana the worst. The organization’s ‘State Scorecard on Climate, Health, and Health Care’ uses eight indicators — from air quality and extreme heat exposure to electricity emissions, flood risk, and health‑sector decarbonization — to rank the states. Florida stands out with nearly 15% of inpatient beds in high‑hazard flood zones, while the Southwest is the national hot spot for heat risk. Arizona has the worst Air Quality Index (AQI). The Commonwealth Fund calls for standardized emissions reporting, climate‑informed hazard planning, and utility‑scale decarbonization to keep care running as climate risks escalate. (The Commonwealth Fund)

Harvard University’s Salata Institute and non-profit Resources for the Future have teamed up to launch the Climate-related Financial and Macroeconomic Risk Initiative (CFMRI), a new research collaboration aimed at overhauling how financial markets and policymakers understand climate risk. The initiative will mobilize top economists and financial experts from Harvard, NYU, Stanford, MIT, and beyond to develop new tools for tracking how climate shocks and the energy transition ripple through credit, insurance, and macroeconomic policy. Initial members of the CFMRI Advisory Committee include Kevin Stiroh — a former Federal Reserve official who spearheaded much of the central bank’s climate work — and Robert Litterman, former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee. (The Salata Institute)

Europe’s environment remains in poor health, with nature degradation and climate impacts posing increasingly severe risks, according to a sweeping new report from the European Environment Agency. The assessment, called ‘Europe’s Environment 2025’ warns that climate-related water stress now affects a third of the continent, and calls on policymakers to prioritize adaptation in response to a ramp-up of extreme weather events ramp up. (European Environment Agency)

New Zealand has launched a second public consultation on expanding its Sustainable Finance Taxonomy to include climate adaptation and resilience criteria for agriculture and forestry, with the aim of driving more capital towards hardening measures for farms and other agricultural assets. The consultation runs through October 17. New Zealand is one of more than 50 jurisdictions — including Singapore, Brazil and Australia — that are drafting sustainable finance taxonomies. (Centre for Sustainable Finance) 

Tech company Amperon has launched an AI-driven Mid-Term Forecast (MTF) tool that provides energy traders with hourly forecasts of US power demand up to seven months in advance.

It represents a major upgrade on the 15-day weather outlooks and high-level seasonal predictions that traders, utilities, and grid operators traditionally rely on. Unlike orthodox models that depend on historical weather norms, Amperon’s machine learning system is trained on years of real weather data to produce 51 unique demand forecasts per day for every US grid. These projections draw on sub-seasonal and seasonal weather forecasts from the European Centre for Mid-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the world’s premier weather prediction service.

CEO Sean Kelly likened the new approach to replacing rearview-mirror planning with a forward-facing windshield: “We’re giving customers the clearest view yet of what demand could look like months from now.”

In testing from January 2024 to July 2025, the model successfully predicted 67 of 68 extreme demand events across major US grids JM, ERCOT, and ISO-NE.

Early adopters include financial traders seeking more confident term positioning, and power plant operators aiming to align maintenance schedules with demand swings. Tokyo Gas America’s Hiroki Horiuchi noted the tool’s potential to reshape energy trading itself: “Amperon’s mid-term forecast doesn’t just have the ability to improve models, it shifts the entire playing field for trading and finding alpha.”

FireTech company Technosylva has deployed what it claims to be the world’s largest supercomputer dedicated to wildfire modeling. Built with PSSC Labs, a computer hardware manufacturer, the device is capable of simulating over a billion fire scenarios each day. The 11,500-core platform delivers near-instant forecasts that incorporate decades of weather and fire data, tracking key variables like fuel moisture and terrain-driven winds. The system’s scale enables utilities to pinpoint at-risk lines and communities up to five days in advance, accelerating decisions on power shutoffs and evacuation alerts while strengthening grid resilience. (Technosylva)

New research from Sustainable Ventures UK shows climate tech start-ups are leaning hard into AI. Software-based startups are raking in the lion’s share of funding — £2.2bn (US$3bn) in 2024, up sharply from previous years — while hardware-focused innovators are capturing just 4% of AI-related investment. The analysis, covering 3,345 UK startups, found that AI has doubled its share of climate tech funding to 40% since 2022. Sectors like energy and mobility are leading the charge with hybrid software-hardware models, but the report warns that if AI’s promise isn’t extended to hardware-heavy sectors like industry and agriculture, the UK could fall short of its climate goals. (Startups Magazine)

Japan’s Kirin Holdings has developed a seedling cultivation technology that improves the resilience of hops plants to extreme heat and drought — without compromising flavor. The technique uses a six-week heat treatment during mass propagation to instill resilience in varieties like Saaz and Hersbrucker, which are critical to the brewing industry. Field and lab trials showed marked improvements in growth and cone yields under stress conditions. Kirin plans to refine the process and expand its application across varieties and regions, to future-proof beer ingredients against climate volatility. (Kirin Holdings)

Rising temperatures, melting incomes: Country-specific macroeconomic effects of climate scenarios (PLOS Climate)

The next chapter of resilience: Pairing proven solutions with bold Innovation at the climate-conflict nexus (International Rescue Committee)

Reduction of the uncertainty of flood projection under a future climate by focusing on similarities among multiple SSP-RCP scenarios (Scientific Reports)

The first emergence of unprecedented global water scarcity in the Anthropocene (Nature Communications)

Future impacts of climate change on global fire weather: Insight from weighted CMIP6 multi-model ensembles (Journal of Climate)

Climate change and the role of regulatory capital: A stylized framework for policy assessment (Journal of Financial Regulation)

Climate physical risks and technological innovation in the grain industry chain: An empirical analysis based on machine learning of patent texts in China (Agricultural Systems)

Non-linear dynamical approaches for characterizing multi-sector climate impacts under irreducible uncertainty (npj Climate and Atmospheric Science)

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor