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Raise Lens

The state of climate funding in 2026

By Andrew Holden

The pattern in climate funding has shifted enough in 2026 that a "follow the money" read of the data is genuinely useful for where you point your applications next. This piece draws on the opportunities currently tracked in the Raise Lens database: grants, government tenders, and corporate offtake programmes across the full sustainability taxonomy. A brief methodology note before diving in: the figures below reflect only what is publicly indexed, meaning programmes with a public call document, a named funder, and a stated funding envelope. Closed-door corporate climate commitments and unpublished government pipelines are not in the count. That matters, and we return to it in section five.

Total funding tracked, by opportunity type

The Raise Lens database currently indexes over $180 billion in active and forthcoming climate-related funding across all opportunity types. That headline number needs immediate disaggregation, because the type of opportunity determines what kind of organisation can actually pursue it.

Grants represent the largest single category by volume, accounting for roughly 60% of tracked funding. The majority of this sits in large-envelope government programmes: US Department of Energy (DOE) grid and clean hydrogen grants, the EU Innovation Fund, and UKRI's Innovate UK competitions. Grant funding is accessible to early-stage companies and nonprofits in principle, but the largest cheques (above $50 million) are almost entirely restricted to later-stage or consortium applicants.

Government tenders and procurement contracts make up approximately 30% of tracked volume. These are generally out of reach for early-stage founders unless they are subcontracting into a prime. Worth monitoring for intelligence about where governments are committing deployment capital, even if the prime contract is not the right vehicle for you.

Corporate offtake programmes and challenge funds represent the remaining 10%, but this is the fastest-growing category. Programmes like Shell's LNG Future Energies offtake framework and Walmart's Project Gigaton supply chain fund are bringing meaningful volume into the trackable universe for the first time. Still, these often require commercial proof-of-concept before a founder can be considered.

The practical read: if you are pre-revenue, your realistic pool is a subset of that 60% grant figure, concentrated in the $100k to $5 million range.

Sector concentration: where the biggest cheques are landing

Three sectors absorb the majority of climate grant volume in 2026.

Renewable energy and grid infrastructure remains the single largest destination, driven almost entirely by the US Inflation Reduction Act's downstream grant and loan programmes administered through DOE and the Loan Programs Office (LPO). The IRA's $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (now disbursing through state-level green banks and CDFIs) is pushing significant capital into solar deployment and grid modernisation. UK equivalents are smaller in absolute terms but more accessible at the early stage: Innovate UK's Net Zero Living and the DESNZ Longer Duration Energy Storage competition both accept applications from sub-scale companies.

Hydrogen has attracted disproportionate institutional attention relative to its current commercial scale. The EU's Hydrogen Valleys programme, the DOE Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs ($7 billion in total across seven awarded hubs), and the UK's Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator have together committed north of $10 billion. Most of this is consortium-structured, which makes it challenging but not impossible for early-stage founders who can attach themselves to a hub as a technology provider or pilot partner.

Carbon removal and nature-based solutions is where the growth rate is highest, even if absolute volumes are still smaller. The DOE Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize, Frontier's advance market commitment (now in its third year), and the UK's Woodland Carbon Guarantee have all expanded their envelopes. Notably, engineered carbon removal (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar) is receiving proportionally more public grant funding than voluntary carbon market finance, which has contracted since 2023's credibility concerns.

Sectors receiving comparatively less: climate adaptation (discussed further below), circular economy, and sustainable food systems. Capital is not absent in these areas, but it is thinner and more fragmented.

Funder concentration: the organisations writing the biggest cheques

Ten funders account for a significant majority of tracked volume. In rough order of envelope size:

  • US Department of Energy (DOE): the single largest public funder, across LPO loan guarantees, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, and direct research grants through ARPA-E.
  • European Commission / EU Innovation Fund: cross-border R&D and large-scale industrial decarbonisation, with calls typically open to EU and associated country applicants.
  • World Bank / International Finance Corporation (IFC): deployment-focused, with a strong developing-economy orientation. Grants are a small slice; most capital is concessional lending.
  • UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) / Innovate UK: the most accessible funder on this list for early-stage UK-based companies, with competitions regularly open at the £100k to £3 million range.
  • UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ): larger-ticket programmes including the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund and the Heat Networks Transformation Programme.
  • US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): significantly expanded in 2025 and 2026 via the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund disbursements.
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: food systems and adaptation, concentrated in lower-income country contexts.
  • Bezos Earth Fund: broader mandate, including biodiversity and land use, with open calls appearing more frequently since 2024.
  • Wellcome Trust: climate and health intersection, smaller envelope than the others on this list but increasingly competitive for founders working on health-climate nexus.
  • European Investment Bank (EIB): primarily debt and equity, but the EIB Institute grant programmes are worth tracking for early-stage climate innovators.

The pattern worth noting: the top three funders (DOE, European Commission, World Bank) are largely inaccessible to a solo founder or a ten-person organisation. Funders four through ten are where early-stage applicants can compete.

Geographic patterns

The US dominates deployment-stage grant volume by a wide margin, driven by the IRA. If you are based in the US and working on clean energy deployment, the capital environment is genuinely favourable, though competition has intensified and application quality requirements have risen accordingly.

The EU's strength is in cross-border R&D and industrial-scale demonstration. Horizon Europe and the Innovation Fund reward consortium-structured applications that span member states. For a single-country early-stage company, the entry point is usually a national funding agency (ADEME in France, BMBF in Germany, the Austrian Climate and Energy Fund) feeding into European programmes rather than applying directly.

The UK occupies an interesting middle position: the absolute volumes are smaller than the US or EU, but the programmes are often more accessible at the early stage. Innovate UK competitions routinely accept applications from companies at Technology Readiness Level 3-5, which is earlier than most DOE or EU Innovation Fund calls. The trade-off is cheque size: UK early-stage grants are typically £100k to £500k for feasibility and £500k to £3 million for demonstration.

For founders outside these three geographies, the picture is patchier. USAID's Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) and the Global Innovation Fund remain important for climate-adjacent development work, but purely climate-focused grant capital flowing into Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia is still largely intermediated through multilateral programmes rather than direct-to-founder calls.

What's not in the data

The $180 billion figure is an undercount, and knowing why matters for how you read it.

Adaptation finance is systematically under-represented. There is no equivalent of the IRA for heat resilience, flood risk management, or agricultural adaptation. Most adaptation funding flows through bilateral aid budgets, national resilience funds, and city-level programmes that are harder to index. The Climate Policy Initiative estimated in 2024 that adaptation receives less than 10% of tracked climate finance globally, a figure broadly consistent with what surfaces in the Raise Lens database.

National lottery and community-level funds are a meaningful source of capital for nonprofits working on sustainability in local contexts. The UK's National Lottery Community Fund, for example, runs climate-relevant programmes that are often a better fit for community organisations than UKRI competitions. These are in the database but are not driving the headline numbers.

Corporate climate budgets are the most significant gap. When a large corporation commits to net zero by 2030 and allocates internal capital to supplier decarbonisation, those funds rarely become public calls. What surfaces are the formalised offtake programmes and challenge funds, but the majority of corporate climate spending is invisible to any external database. This is one reason the growth in tracked corporate offtake volume is worth watching: it is a signal of a wider commitment, not the commitment itself.

What early-stage founders should take from the patterns

A few direct conclusions from the data:

If you are in the US and working on clean energy, the capital is there. The constraint now is application quality and competition, not capital availability. Invest in your proposal writing and in finding the right DOE programme office before applying.

If you are a UK early-stage company, Innovate UK is still your most reliable entry point. The amounts are smaller, but the accessibility at low TRL is genuinely differentiated. Building a track record through Innovate UK competitions also makes you a stronger consortium partner for larger EU and US bids later.

Hydrogen and carbon removal are receiving capital in excess of current commercial absorptive capacity. If you are working in either space, this is a window. The window will narrow as more companies mature.

Adaptation and circular economy are underfunded relative to need and relative to market size. If you are in these sectors, the funding environment is harder, but it is also less competitive. The founders who do the work of mapping the fragmented funding landscape in these spaces are at an advantage.

For 2027, watch the Just Transition and climate finance access agenda. Both the EU and the UK are building out programmes specifically for regions and communities on the wrong side of the transition. These programmes are smaller now but are expanding, and they tend to favour organisations with community and place-based approaches.

Use this in Raise Lens

Filter /opportunities by sector to see your specific slice of the 2026 funding pool, updated daily as new calls open and close. On /sectors, each flagship sector page shows the live count of open opportunities in that space, so you can compare the current picture against the figures in this post to see how the flow has shifted since we published. Save a combined sector and country filter on /opportunities so you get notified when new programmes open in your specific geography and focus area, rather than checking manually.

The funding landscape in 2026 rewards founders who understand the structure of the capital, not just the existence of it. The total volume is large, but the accessible slice for an early-stage organisation is defined by opportunity type, geography, and stage. Starting with the right filter saves you weeks of misapplied effort. Browse the full opportunity set at /opportunities and set up a saved search for your sector today.