As the U.S. and Europe pull back from global climate aid, can Asian funders fill the gap?

Shaun Seow, who heads the Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA), has a theory on why the new generation of Asian philanthropists is more interested in fighting climate change. “A lot of next-generation leaders are recreational divers; they look at the bleached corals and think it’s not right,” says Seow, whose organization is backed by Singapore state investor Temasek, on the sidelines of the Philanthropy Asia Summit. Globally, less than 2% of philanthropic giving goes to mitigating climate change. Of that small amount, an even smaller sliver—just 12%—goes to Asia. That’s despite Asia being disproportionately affected by climate change: The region is warming at twice the global average, and 3.7 billion people in Asia, three times the rest of the world, have been affected by climate-related disasters since 2000. To make matters worse, sources of international aid have dried up. Last July, U.S. President Trump shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development, eliminating over $40 billion in funding from climate-related development projects around the world. European nations have also been scaling back their commitments to climate aid: France reduced its development aid budget by 40% as part of austerity cuts, while Germany slashed its international aid budget from 6 billion euros to just 4.58 billion in 2025. “For a long time, people have expected climate leadership to come from the West,” Jamie Choi, the CEO of Singapore-based Tara Climate Foundation, told Fortune. “We have been looking to places like Europe and the U.S. to take leadership, but those days are long gone.” As the West scales back on climate funding, Asian funders are stepping in to plug the gap. In Asia, an estimated $5.8 trillion is expected to change hands before the end of the decade. Choi says that the Tara Climate Foundation, which started in 2014 under the European Climate Foundation before spinning off as an independent entity in 2022, had been a “lone wolf” on climate issues, but now other As