Brazil sits at the center of the global climate challenge and opportunity. It is one of the world’s top five emitters when land-use change is included, and simultaneously holds exceptional potential to lead on climate solutions – with an estimated 500–800 MtCO2e per year in nature-based mitigation potential, the highest share of renewables in the G20 (84% of power in 2024), and strategic reserves of nickel, graphite, lithium, and niobium that anchor clean-technology supply chains. The country also faces acute climate risks requiring urgent adaptation, with recent floods, fires, and droughts disrupting livelihoods, straining hydropower, and disproportionately affecting rural, low-income, and Indigenous communities. Brazil’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution and its National Adaptation Plan set a clear direction for emissions cuts and resilience, but delivery will depend on strengthening enabling conditions. Both can be implemented as fast as the already identified enabling conditions are deployed: institutional capacity, research, and policy pathways that can unlock larger public and private investment.
This note provides key findings of a first comprehensive analysis of grant-based (non-reimbursable) climate funding
to Brazil until the end of 2023, bringing philanthropy and grant-based ODA into a single analysis focused on actual
disbursements rather than announced commitments. It quantifies, for the first time, how resources flow to
each of Brazil’s major biomes (Amazon, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Pantanal, Pampa, and coastal and marine
systems), revealing where funding is concentrated and where significant gaps persist. It also offers the most
granular picture to date of which sectors and sub-sectors receive support across Brazil’s climate profile, from landuse and forests to agriculture, energy, transport, industry, cities, adaptation and resilience, governance and legal work, research and data, and public engagement – and which areas remain comparatively under-prioritized by current grantmaking. At the end, we also share a set of recommendations for climate philanthropies to act more strategically in Brazil.