The challenge: Many countries have ambitious climate strategies but lack a way to turn them into bankable projects. This often results in a “missing middle” between climate plans and real investments. 

The solution: Brazil highlighted its new Climate Investment Platform – a country-led mechanism that identifies priority projects from its national climate plans and connects them with funding. The platform brings together government ministries, development banks, private investors and climate funds to design and prepare investment-ready projects. By bundling and de-risking projects through a coordinated national pipeline, it has already mobilized around $5 billion for 18 initial projects. 

Why it matters: This platform approach is a practical fix to one of the biggest hurdles in climate action: how to get money flowing to implementable projects. By aligning financing with well-prepared proposals, it turns climate promises into real investments in renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure and adaptation. 

Scaling potential: Many other countries could adapt this model, with support from international finance partners, to accelerate their own climate project pipelines. 

The challenge: Decades ago, deforestation and land degradation in Nepal threatened livelihoods, biodiversity and climate resilience. A centralized approach to forest management wasn’t working, and local communities were often excluded from decisions. 

The solution: Over the past 30 years, Nepal pioneered community forestry, handing management of forests to local user groups under supportive national policies. This approach was celebrated during CW3 as a model of how empowering communities can yield climate and development gains. More than 23,000 community forest groups now sustainably manage over 2.4 million hectares of forest in Nepal, improving forest cover (now about 46% of the country) and providing local income and resources. 

Why it matters: Community forestry has simultaneously curbed deforestation (and therefore carbon emissions), enhanced biodiversity, and improved livelihoods. It’s a proven, low-cost climate solution that puts people at the center, turning them into stewards of the environment. 
Scaling potential: Variations of Nepal’s community forestry model have already spread to other countries. With adequate support and capacity building, the approach can be replicated wherever communities depend on forests, from Asia to Africa and beyond. 

The challenge: Heavy industries like cement are vital to economies but among the hardest sectors to decarbonize. These industries often face “lock-in” of high emissions, with few affordable technologies available to capture or eliminate their carbon output. 

The solution: The representative from Norway presented their “Longship” project, a flagship carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiative. Longship is building a full value chain: capturing CO₂ from plant, shipping it via specialized vessels, and storing it safely under the North Sea in the Northern Lights storage facility. This includes a mechanism allowing other European countries’ to transport their CO₂ for storage – creating a shared infrastructure that benefits multiple countries. 

Why it matters: Longship is a real-world demonstration that large-scale carbon capture and storage can be done, turning the concept into an operational climate solution. Cooperation on many different levels, between the government and industry partners to develop the model, between neighbors in the region to share storage, and between countries across the world to exchange knowledge and expertise, was able to make this solution a reality. Showcasing the possibility of importing or exporting CO2 for storage may contribute to lowering the barrier for industries to capture emissions, even without the ideal geology for storage.      

Scaling potential: As more countries establish carbon pricing or markets, projects like Longship can position industries to thrive in a low-carbon economy.

The challenge: Many developing countries, including LDCs and SIDS, face climate threats but lack access to advanced technologies like AI to help manage those threats. Without local capacity and appropriate tools, they risk missing out on powerful data-driven solutions for mitigation and adaptation. 

The solution: During CW3, the UNFCCC and partners highlighted the “Technology Mechanism Initiative on AI for Climate Action” aimed at exploring the role of AI as a powerful technological tool for advancing and scaling up transformative climate solutions for mitigation and adaptation action in developing countries with a focus on LDCs and SIDS. Through partnerships (including support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency), this initiative shares knowledge and experience on AI for climate action among stakeholders, supports capacity-building efforts to leverage emerging digital technologies and devise locally led solutions harnessing AI – for example, to create early warning systems, optimize renewable energy management, or fight climate misinformation – in ways tailored to the local communities’ needs. 

Why it matters: AI has enormous potential to increase the efficiency and reach of climate solutions, from predicting extreme weather to optimizing energy use. This initiative ensures that advanced tools are applied responsibly and equitably, empowering developing countries rather than leaving them behind. 

Scaling potential: As more partners invest in open, accessible AI for climate (with appropriate safeguards), these innovations can scale globally. Crucially, building local capacity and data governance now will help ensure that AI benefits all regions, including those most vulnerable to climate change. 

The challenge: Transport accounts for nearly 70% of Seoul's greenhouse gas emissions and private vehicles dominated commuting choices.

The solution: The Seoul Metropolitan Government introduced a flat-rate, unlimited Climate Card covering subways, buses and shared bikes, later expanded to seven neighboring cities and adopted as a national model.

Why it matters: Public transport use rose by more than two additional trips per person per week, daily ridership grew by about 4%, and the city estimates around 30,000 tons of avoided emissions per year.

Scaling potential: The model is now being replicated nationally and offers a template for other megacities integrating affordability, behavior change and emissions reduction.

The challenge: Coastal Bangladesh faces compounding risks of cyclones, salinity intrusion and water scarcity.

The solution: UNDP's coastal resilience project combines climate-resilient drinking water systems, rainwater harvesting, filtration, solar-powered infrastructure and women's group management.

Why it matters: The integrated package reaches over 1 million people and links adaptation with clean energy and gender-responsive governance.

Scaling potential: The model is replicable across other low-lying coastal communities facing similar risks.

The challenge: Pakistan has significant untapped mitigation potential in its organic waste and agricultural sector and has prioritized these areas in their NDC, however had struggled to translate these NDC priorities into projects that can attract climate finance.

The solution: Early-stage technical assistance came from CTCN to develop a national technology roadmap for NDC implementation and investment ready concept notes. Building on this foundation, GGGI supported to develop the National Biochar Accelerator Program, created as a long-term investment programme supporting pilots to scale to industrial level and working towards linking projects to carbon markets.  

Why it matters: Pakistan’s example shows how early-stage technical assistance can evolve into a structured investment program when government ownership is strong and policy, technology, and finance are treated as interconnected. The programme simultaneously addresses mitigation, soil health, and rural livelihoods, while building a financially sustainable model with GGGI estimating annual revenue of up to USD 800,000 to 1.15 million per facility.

Scaling potential: The approach is already being replicated from a similar program in the Philippines, and the underlying model which uses technical assistance to generate bankable pipelines to attract carbon finance and private capital can be transferred to other developing countries with agricultural residue streams with the potential to link to carbon markets.

The challenge: As an LDC, Cambodia faces USD 7.8 billion in NDC financing needs but cannot rely on its public budget alone. Like many developing countries, it struggled with the "missing middle" between national climate priorities and projects that financiers can actually engage with.

The solution: Cambodia established a dedicated Climate Financing Facility — a USD 109 million blended finance mechanism anchored in its own state-owned policy bank — to channel concessional capital toward high-priority NDC sectors and crowd in local private finance. The facility combines a USD 100 million lending window with a USD 9 million technical assistance facility, specifically designed to de-risk green projects and build the local financial sector's appetite for climate investment.

Why it matters: Cambodia demonstrates that country ownership and institutional ambition can bridge the gap between climate priorities and investable pipelines. By embedding the facility within a national institution and aligning it explicitly with NDC targets, it creates a systemic shift — not a one-off project, but a financing architecture built to last.

Scaling potential: The model is replicable precisely because it works within existing national institutions rather than creating parallel structures, making it adaptable to other developing country contexts seeking to move from climate plans to bankable pipelines.