Happy New Year and welcome back to the first 2026 edition of Invested. This week, we’re spanning the 2025–2026 divide by looking back on last year and looking forward at what’s next for climate investors.

Following a year where the U.S. retreated from the front lines of climate diplomacy and European powers pivoted toward defense spending, the global development community finds itself navigating a landscape of strategic silence and fragmented leadership on climate change.

For investors and development finance institutions, this year’s focus isn't likely to be the “what” — the goal to reach $300 billion in annual public climate finance by 2035 — but the “how,” experts tell me. The future is uncertain: There are no clear guidelines on getting there, the road map for boosting that $300 billion to at least $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance by the same year is largely stalled, and no major economies are yet willing to commit to five-year pledges beyond 2025. Meanwhile, private players are entering a period of “green-hushing” in which they continue their climate-smart transitions in the shadows to avoid political crosshairs, making impact-tracking a daunting new challenge for transparency.

Experts on climate investing say that the real movement this year likely won't happen in big plenary halls, but in the budget committees of domestic parliaments and the quiet strategies of private insurers who recognize that, regardless of the political winds, climate risk remains a permanent fixture on the balance sheet.

Key Themes for Climate Investors to Watch in 2026

  • The transparency gap: The rise of green-hushing among private investors creates a data vacuum that could stall the mobilization of private capital.
  • Adaptation accountability: Under new Ghanaian leadership, the African group of negotiators on climate change is pushing to turn 59 technical indicators into grant-based finance mechanisms.
  • The finance plumbing: Climate investors should be aware of the recognition that the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP, sets the goals, but the G7, G20, and finance ministries control the actual delivery of the $300 billion goal.

Survival of the Fittest

In 2025, as climate investors are likely aware, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency emerged as a rare success story in an otherwise turbulent year for Washington’s development landscape. While larger peers such as USAID faced existential threats and an “America First” restructuring, the tiny, nearly 60-person USTDA managed to navigate the first year of the second Trump administration by leaning into its identity as a transactional powerhouse, my colleague Adva Saldinger writes. By demonstrating an average of $226 in U.S. exports for every dollar spent and aligning its work with U.S. national security priorities — think critical minerals, digital infrastructure, and competing with China — USTDA proved it could serve this administration’s foreign policy vision without losing its core mission.

Read the full article about climate investing trends to watch in 2026 by Jesse Chase-Lubitz at Devex.