Unbalanced Governance of Climate Funding Instruments: A Global South Perspective

This article examines how international climate finance governance reproduces structural inequalities between the Global North and South. It adopts a qualitative, critical and comparative approach, combining documentary analysis of major multilateral climate funds from 2015 to 2025 with multilevel governance theory, dependency theory and postcolonial perspectives. The analysis identifies restrictive accreditation requirements, unequal institutional capacities, the predominance of loans, geographical and sectoral concentration of resources, and the marginalization of local knowledge. These mechanisms constrain direct access, reinforce financial dependency and weaken national and subnational capacities to implement climate policies and legislation. Formal parity in representation does not ensure equivalent influence over decisions, while adaptation remains underfunded relative to mitigation. The study concludes that increasing financial commitments, including those associated with the Baku-Belém Roadmap, requires structural governance reforms. Priorities include simplifying access, expanding grants, strengthening domestic institutions, recognizing territorial knowledge and aligning allocation with climate vulnerability and historical responsibility. Such reforms are essential to advance climate justice, financial sovereignty and effective climate action across governmental levels.