Finance for Climate Action: Making a Fair and Defossilized Future Possible

Discussions on finance for climate action, including how it relates to debt structures and global tax policy, may seem remote from people’s lives, but they have a tangible impact on the everyday lives and human rights of people all around the world. 

This explainer aims to provide a clear and accessible introduction to finance for climate action and its importance to achieving a defossilized future. 

Here, you will read about key concepts of finance for climate action, its importance for human rights, and who is responsible for providing it. This document is part of the series of climate explainers and human rights education (HRE) activities Amnesty International published in 2025: Civic Space and Environmental Human Rights Defenders: Essential for achieving Climate Justice, and Just & Equitable Fossil Fuel Phase Out: Explainer and Facilitator Resource. 

This explainer is both an informational resource and a practical human rights education tool that equips you with core concepts, real-world case studies and reflections to support debates on the issue and inspire action. It can be used to facilitate roundtables, guide structured discussions, support classroom or community workshops, prompt individual reflection or encourage further personal research and advocacy. The reflection questions and activities included throughout are designed to help learners and facilitators connect global finance for climate action debates and discussions to their own national and local context. 

By the end, we hope readers and learners will grasp the core concepts of finance for climate action, the scale of the current gap, the dangers of debt-creating solutions, and the human rights-aligned ways countries can and must raise funds to support mitigation and adaptation and to address loss and damage.