Trillion-Dollar Climate Finance Broken Promise

Across the world from the drylands of Karamoja in Uganda to the terraced hills of Nepal, small-scale farmers stand on the frontlines of a crisis they did not create.

They produce nearly one-third of the world’s food, sustain biodiversity, and defend ecosystems, yet remain systematically excluded from climate finance. This is not an accident. It is a political choice.

Climate finance was promised as a bridge between historical responsibility and climate justice. Instead, it has become a mechanism that reproduces inequality—benefiting those already powerful while sidelining the very communities who feed the world.

Why the Broken Promise? In 2009, during the Copenhagen Climate Conference, developed countries pledged to mobilize $100 billion annually to support climate action in the Global South (UNFCCC 2009- Copenhagen Accord.

This was framed as a matter of fairness- an acknowledgment of ecological debt owed to developing countries. Yet over a decade later, that promise remains unmet and distorted. According to OECD 2023, climate finance reached $89.6 billion in 2021—much of it delivered as loans, further indebting vulnerable nations. Even more revealing, less than 1% reaches small-scale farmers directly as reported in IFAD 2023.

Small-scale farmers’ movements such as ESAFF Uganda among others have long warned that climate finance, as currently structured, is not designed for farmers, peasants, pastoralists, or Indigenous peoples. It is designed for governments, corporations, and financial institutions. Over 80% of funds flow through these actors, reinforcing top-down control over resources as reported by the Climate Policy Initiative 2023.

In Uganda, this reality is evident. While the country receives an estimated $300–400 million annually in climate finance, very little reaches farmer organizations or grassroots agroecological initiatives. This is not climate justice—it is climate finance captured.

The New Green Colonialism. Carbon markets are increasingly promoted as a “win-win” solution. But for many farmer movements, they represent a new frontier of exploitation. Globally, carbon offset schemes now span millions of hectares, with Africa holding significant sequestration potential yet capturing less than 5% of revenues as per the World Bank 2022 report. In Uganda, carbon projects—especially in forestry—continue to expand, often without meaningful participation of local communities.

For small-scale farmers, these schemes come with heavy costs. Complex measurement, reporting, and verification systems that exclude them from meaningful participation. Payments are delayed, unpredictable, and often negligible. As highlighted by the World Bank (2022)- Carbon Markets for Agriculture, much of the value is absorbed by intermediaries before reaching farmers.

ESAFF Uganda and other farmer movements across the globe has called this what it is: a system where the Global South is turned into a carbon sink for the Global North, while local communities lose control over land and livelihoods.

Evidence from across Africa shows that carbon offset projects have contributed to land conflicts, restricted access to resources, and displacement. These dynamics echo what many small-scale farmers and their movements describe as “green grabbing”—the appropriation of land in the name of climate action as stated by IIED (2021) in the carbon offsetting and land rights in Africa.

While global finance systems fail, small-scale farmers are not waiting. They are investing their own scarce resources to adapt. According to FAO (2021) report -the State of Food and Agriculture, smallholder farmers invest approximately $368 billion annually in their farms. In Uganda, this translates into households allocating up to 30% of their income to climate adaptation as indicated in IFAD & FAO smallholder investment estimates.

This reality exposes a profound injustice: those least responsible for climate change are financing its solutions. For movements like ESAFF Uganda, this is not just a funding gap—it is a violation of the principle of climate justice and historical responsibility. When Climate Finance Harms Communities, the impacts go beyond economics. Carbon trading and poorly designed climate interventions are reshaping rural societies in harmful ways.

In Uganda, land tenure insecurity linked to carbon projects has heightened tensions, particularly affecting women who often lack formal land rights. Uganda Bureau of Statistics (2022) report shows that over 50% of women have experienced gender-based violence, a situation that is exacerbated by resource conflicts and economic stress.

At the same time, monoculture plantations promoted under carbon schemes threaten biodiversity and local food systems, undermining food sovereignty—the right of people to define their own food systems.

For small-scale farmers and their movements, this is a clear contradiction: solutions to the climate crisis cannot come at the cost of people’s rights, food systems, and ecosystems.

Loss and Damage: Justice Deferred _The establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 was celebrated as a breakthrough. But the reality remains far from transformative. Current pledges amount to only a fraction of what is needed—far below the $290–580 billion annually estimated by the UNEP (2023) Adaptation Gap Report and more critically, there is little clarity on how these funds are supposed to reach farming communities. For small-scale farmers—who face crop failure, floods, and droughts—the fund remains distant and inaccessible. So, the exclusion of small-scale farmers is not technical—it is structural and political.

Policies continue to prioritize large-scale, industrial approaches over agroecology. Data systems fail to capture farmer realities. Financial flows are controlled by intermediaries who hold power over decision-making. As a result, farmers are treated as beneficiaries, not rights-holders.

Small-scale farmers and other social movements are not just critiquing the system—they are proposing alternatives.

They call for:

• Direct access to climate finance for their farmer organizations and cooperatives

• Public financing that supports agroecology, not extractive models

• Recognition of farmers as agents of change, not passive recipients

• Protection of land rights and community governance systems

• An end to false solutions such as carbon offsetting that shift responsibility without reducing emissions

  
  

At its core, this is a demand to democratize climate finance.

Therefore, there is a Defining Question of Our Time given the fact that the climate crisis is not only about carbon—it is about power, justice, and rights.

Will climate finance continue to serve markets and corporations?Or will it be reclaimed to support those who feed the world?

Small-scale farmers are not victims. They are organizers, innovators, and defenders of life. They are already practicing solutions through agroecology, seed systems, and collective action.

What they demand is simple- recognition, resources, and rights. Because the future of climate action will not be decided in boardrooms, but in the fields—and in the struggles of those who refuse to be excluded.