At the first-ever Luxembourg International Climate Finance Days, global experts explored the systems needed to better connect high-integrity climate and nature solutions with the financial mechanisms required to scale them
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (4 June 2026) – As communities worldwide continue to face the consequences of increasingly severe climate shocks, from prolonged droughts and heatwaves to flooding and ecosystem degradation intensified by El Niño and climate change, experts gathered today at the first-ever Luxembourg International Climate Finance Days with the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) to discuss a critical question: how can finance reach climate and nature solutions at the speed and scale the crisis demands?
Leaders from government, finance, technology, science and project development explored how artificial intelligence, trusted data and collaboration could help overcome one of the biggest bottlenecks in climate action: connecting investment-ready local solutions with the capital needed to scale them.
“There’s a pipeline gap where impactful initiatives are not well-structured and not investment-ready. Second is the capacity gap, where local actors, institutions and intermediaries don’t have the adequate knowledge to actually face this challenge. And third, more on the financial sector, is the risk perception gap where the lack and fragmentation of data transforms into insecurity, uncertainty and overestimation of risk,” said Jasmin Metzler, Senior Advisor, International Climate Finance & Sustainable Finance, Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity of Luxembourg.
“To unlock meaningful capital, we need standardized approaches for measuring biodiversity outcomes, stronger project aggregation, and mechanisms and ways that allow communities to share fairly in the value created. Nature Finance will only succeed if it improves both ecosystems and livelihoods,” said Ken Kimani, Director of Corporate Affairs, Ol Pejeta Conservancy.
As experts examined how to make locally led and community-based initiatives investable at scale, AI-enabled tools emerged as strategic components to improve visibility, comparability and investment matchmaking across regions and investment pathways.
To lower the barriers that prevent investors from identifying suitable climate and nature investments, data should be centralized and standardized to improve verification, as well as accelerate due diligence and make it more affordable.
“There should be transparency by design. All the code, data, as well as the limitations of the system should be properly documented and readable by people… there also comes the issue of accountability, which is crucial and we should try to build it through governance – there should be a multi-stakeholder perspective, we should have experts, ethicists, regulators and representatives of the communities,” said Nida Khan, Founder and CEO, Nash FintechX, who also underlined the importance of inclusivity, innovation and regulation co-evolving together in the development of climate projects or sustainable finance.
“There’s a lot of evidence that can show how communities are committed to sustainability, to success, to profit, to the things that we all care about. A pipeline should not only invest in the infrastructure of fancy tools in order for them to be monitored, but in tools that provide evidence and proof of their work and investment – by creating that evidence, generating more knowledge, building on long-term pipelines, we could see quite a lot of things,” said Catherine Nakalembe, Associate Research Professor, University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences, and Africa Program Director, NASA Harvest.
Building a trusted AI and digital infrastructure together, with communities, finance actors, governments and ecosystem platforms, can help connect capital with local solutions globally, advancing effective, high-integrity climate and nature solutions in a sustainable and ethical way at scale and speed.
“Make it faster. We have been working on pipelines for years, and in the meantime, entrepreneurs are waiting and some of them disappear. It’s not anyone’s fault but it’s everyone’s responsibility to make the decision processes faster. And technology can help us build investors’ trust faster,” said Nicolas Métro, CEO and Founder of Kinomé, and Head of Impact and Transformation at Mitsiry.
“Our approach to international climate finance is focused on practical solutions combining public finance, private capital, innovation and partnerships. A very good example is the Rio Changemakers Initiative developed together with the Global Landscapes Forum: to create an AI-enabled science guided marketplace that improves visibility, comparability and match-making,” said Benjamin Questier, International Climate Finance Senior Advisor, Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Biodiversity of Luxembourg.
“Technology alone will not solve the problem and neither will finance if it is designed without the people closest to the land. At the GLF, locally-led solutions are not something we support from the outside but something that we build together. Therefore, the objective is not to make communities fit the needs of finance but to help finance better understand, value and prioritize the aspirations of local actors,” said Kamal Prawiranegara, Director of the Global Landscapes Forum.
Rewatch the sessions and discover insights from all the experts, also including Esli Spahiu (The LHoFT), Hans Bolscher (TRINOMICS), Ida Nganga (AI & STEM Partnerships HUB), Isabelle Delas (LuxFLAG), John Colmey (CIFOR-ICRAF and the GLF), Ludwig Liagre (Rio Impact), Mathilde Bauwin (Appui au Développement Autonome) and Sanjay Rajan (Maanuka Consulting).
Visual notes of the GLF sessions “AI for Climate and Nature Finance” and “From Pipeline to Investment” at the Luxembourg International Climate Finance Days.
Graphic: Anna Denardin / Global Landscapes Forum
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NOTES TO EDITORS
- For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact Kelly Quintero (k.quintero@cifor-icraf.org)
- Download the photos of the release from this Google Drive folder
- Learn more about the Luxembourg International Climate Finance Days
- Explore more GLF updates in our media room
ABOUT THE GLF
The Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) is the world’s largest knowledge-led platform on integrated land use, connecting people with a shared vision to create productive, profitable, equitable and resilient landscapes. It is led by the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF), in collaboration with its co-founders UNEP and the World Bank, and its charter members. Learn more at www.globallandscapesforum.org.
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