Content Library

News

Curated stories and analysis from islands and sustainability leaders worldwide.

Showing 9 of 84 news items in Green Finance & Economy
Position Paper: Bridge the Climate Finance Gap for the BES Islands
Green Finance & EconomyMarch 25, 2026

Position Paper: Bridge the Climate Finance Gap for the BES Islands

Excerpt from clean-energy-islands.ec.europa.eu The special municipalities of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba (BES islands) are located in the Caribbean and part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The BES islands face growing challenges in securing the financing needed for a clean, reliable, and affordable energy transition. Energy transition financing is not only an environmental imperative for economic stability and energy security. The BES islands are highly motivated and have a robust pipeline of projects to meet their climate goals. By streamlining access to the right funding mechanisms, these initiatives can be unlocked. Clearer, scale-appropriate investment pathways will accelerate the transition to clean, reliable, and affordable energy, ensuring long-term stability and prosperity for households, utilities, and public budgets alike. As special municipalities, the position of the local governments and the utilities of the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustasius, and Saba differs from that of autonomous OCTs, and as a result, they face specific challenges in financing their energy transition. In this position paper, the Clean energy for EU islands secretariat presents those challenges and proposes recommendations for European and national policymakers to improve access to funding for the energy transition in the BES islands.

Read more
New Small States Bulletin highlights power of Commonwealth partnership for vulnerable economies
Green Finance & EconomyMarch 18, 2026

New Small States Bulletin highlights power of Commonwealth partnership for vulnerable economies

Excerpt from thecommonwealth.org The Commonwealth has mobilised millions of dollars in climate finance, strengthened debt management across 16 countries, and accelerated renewable energy investment in vulnerable Commonwealth Small States, with results highlighted in a new report launched today in London. The Commonwealth Small States Bulletin 2025, themed “Stronger Together: Scaling Solutions for Small States,” was unveiled at the Commonwealth Investment Network (CIN) Summit, detailing practical solutions for supporting small states in navigating rising debt pressures, climate shocks, and limited access to finance.

Read more
When autonomy meets climate stress: Centralized finance and climate adaptation in a semi-autonomous island
Green Finance & EconomyMarch 2, 2026

When autonomy meets climate stress: Centralized finance and climate adaptation in a semi-autonomous island

Excerpt from “When autonomy meets climate stress: Centralized finance and climate adaptation in a semi-autonomous island” by Marie Stéphania Perrine, published on LinkedIn Pulse (24 February 2026). Introduction Across small island contexts, decentralization is frequently framed as a pathway to locally tailored development and improved governance responsiveness (Narotoma, 2022). Yet in climate-exposed island jurisdictions, the practical implications of autonomy depend less on formal legislative authority than on fiscal architecture (OECD, 2023). Semi-autonomous island regions often exercise administrative and policy control over key development sectors while remaining embedded within nationally centralized macro-fiscal systems (Baldacchino, 2006). This institutional configuration has significant consequences for climate-resilient development. This article examines how fiscal arrangements shape resilience capacity in semi-autonomous island jurisdictions, drawing specifically on the case of Rodrigues (Mauritius). It argues that climate vulnerability interacts decisively with centralized fiscal design (SNG-WOF, 2022): where decentralization transfers responsibility without transferring scalable financial instruments, vulnerability may be compounded rather than reduced (Tye and Suarez, 2021; Alcántara-Ayala et al., 2025).

Read more
How insurance can transform our resilience to climate shocks
Green Finance & EconomyJanuary 25, 2026

How insurance can transform our resilience to climate shocks

Excerpt from eco-business.com Photo credit: Noel Celis / Greenpeace via eco-business.com As the world accelerates efforts to decarbonise, a crisis continues to unfold: the rising toll of climate shocks on people least equipped to bear them. When Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, it produced extensive damage and highlighted the exposure of vulnerable communities to climate risk. Early estimates suggest tens of billions of dollars in economic losses, yet insurance penetration - a tool that could help remedy these losses - remains very low with less than 5 per cent of properties estimated to have meaningful cover.

Read more
Spain unveils €405m support scheme for renewables and clean-tech manufacturing
Green Finance & EconomyJanuary 15, 2026

Spain unveils €405m support scheme for renewables and clean-tech manufacturing

Excerpt and Photo Credit: strategicenergy.eu Spain has launched two new funding calls totalling 405 million euros to advance its energy transition strategy, combining support for renewable energy deployment with measures to strengthen domestic industrial capacity in clean technologies. The initiatives are managed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) and the Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE). Together, they aim to accelerate the replacement of fossil fuels while positioning Spain as a competitive manufacturing hub for the European clean-tech value chain.

Read more
Support offered to islands to help bridge climate finance gap
Green Finance & EconomyNovember 27, 2025

Support offered to islands to help bridge climate finance gap

Excerpt from bbc.bm As the world gathers for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the Green Overseas (GO) Programme, funded by the European Union and implemented by Expertise France, will bring a clear message: Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) are not just vulnerable to climate change, they are key actors in global climate solutions – and urgently need access to climate finance to strengthen adaptation and mitigation efforts. The GO Programme is working to bridge this finance gap, supporting OCTs in building resilience, accessing international funds, and calling for their voices to be heard in global climate negotiations. This year’s COP, described by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the “COP of Truth”, calls for real-world progress and solutions that move beyond commitments to measurable change. For the OCTs, this moment is both urgent and defining. Facing rising seas, coastal erosion, and intensifying storms, these territories stand at the frontline of climate disruption, while holding vast marine areas that are essential to global ecological balance.

Read more
'Climate Finance Is Not Charity': Pacific Islands Confront the World at COP30
Green Finance & EconomyNovember 20, 2025

'Climate Finance Is Not Charity': Pacific Islands Confront the World at COP30

Excerpt from earthjournalism.net As the COP30 Climate Summit opens this week in Belém, Brazil, the Pacific Islands have once again seized the global stage—not as bystanders, but as moral leaders demanding that the world act urgently on climate change. For the nations scattered across the vast Blue Pacific, where rising seas are swallowing ancestral lands and stronger cyclones are rewriting coastlines, the fight for the 1.5 degrees Celsius global temperature limit is not a matter of politics. It is a “matter of survival.” “Fast action and global unity are critical for survival, especially for the world’s most vulnerable island nations,” said UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell in his opening address yesterday, urging leaders to act decisively.

Read more
Pacific Farmers head to COP30 in Brazil to discuss direct access to climate finance
Green Finance & EconomyNovember 16, 2025

Pacific Farmers head to COP30 in Brazil to discuss direct access to climate finance

Excerpt from islandsbusiness.com A DELEGATION of farmer-leaders from the Pacific Farmer Organisations will travel to Belém, Brazil, for the UN Climate Summit (COP30) to deliver an urgent message: climate finance must go directly to the farmers and communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. The delegation’s advocacy is backed by new research revealing a shocking gap in funding. Pacific small-scale farmers require an estimated US$77 million every year to adapt their food systems to climate change, yet they are currently receiving only 1.47% of that amount. This gap in funding is leaving the region’s food security, culture, and livelihoods dangerously exposed. Ilisapeci Vakacegu, Programs Manager for Policy and Advocacy at Pacific Farmer Organisations says “The main factor causing this breakdown is accessibility. It takes money just to be able to access a pocket of funding. The system just ends up serving institutions and not farmers.” Throughout the two-week summit, the delegation will advocate for “direct and fair finance,” urging global leaders to bypass complex intermediaries and channel funds through more agile, farmer-led mechanisms, such as Pacific Farmer Organisations Climate Resilient Farming Framework and the proposed Global Farmer’s Resilience and Empowerment Fund.

Read more
’New money’: UWI researchers to design new islands climate finance framework
Green Finance & EconomyNovember 1, 2025

’New money’: UWI researchers to design new islands climate finance framework

Excerpt from barbadostoday.bb Two University of the West Indies researchers are fronting a bold new funding mechanism to channel concessional climate finance to small developing states, including Barbados, under a One Health climate-resilience framework. Director of the Centre for Biosecurity Studies at the UWI Cave Hill, Dr Kirk Douglas, is partnering with climate-finance economist at the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad, Dr Preeya Mohan, to design and deliver a climate-finance architecture for concessional funding to support One Health climate resilience for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and SIDS, in the spirit of the Bridgetown Initiative.

Read more