The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) has come under criticism from ShareAction after arguing that private capital must play a larger role in financing climate adaptation and resilience, after the alliance dropped a requirement for members to align with the Paris Agreement.
The move drew a sharp response from campaign group ShareAction, which said GFANZ risks weakening climate ambition.
Responding to a new GFANZ report on adaptation finance, Jeanne Martin, head of the banking programme at ShareAction, said she “cautiously” welcomed the alliance’s focus on addressing barriers to mobilising capital, but warned that its retreat from mandatory Paris alignment could undermine progress towards climate goals.
“GFANZ’s decision to walk back on a requirement to align with the Paris Agreement is a dangerous one, which could lead to its members lowering [their ambitions] even as climate change impacts like extreme weather are harming communities around the world,” Martin said.
Martin added that banks’ current climate targets remain insufficient to redirect capital away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy at the pace required, arguing that GFANZ should ensure members both mobilise capital for the real-economy transition and phase out support for fossil fuels.
In its report launched this week, drawing on 22 case studies from across the financial sector, GFANZ said adaptation finance is becoming “increasingly viable within existing commercial frameworks” and highlighted examples ranging from climate-smart agriculture and water infrastructure to resilient real estate and disaster risk insurance.
The report aims to show how private financial institutions are already financing climate resilience projects and to identify lessons for scaling adaptation finance across the global economy. According to GFANZ, nearly half the case studies involved private financial institutions delivering adaptation solutions on purely commercial terms.
GFANZ, launched in 2021 as an umbrella body for net-zero financial alliances including the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, has since faced a series of member departures amid concerns over legal risks and anti-ESG backlash in the US.
In a keynote speech at the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) 2026 Roundtable in London on 23 June, Mary Schapiro, vice chair and head of the GFANZ Secretariat, acknowledged that adaptation has traditionally been viewed as more difficult to finance than mitigation.
“They require investment to be brought forward now to avoid losses down the line, and the benefits often accrue across diverse actors,” she said.
GFANZ stressed that adaptation finance is no longer a theoretical concept, arguing that private financial institutions are already financing resilience projects using mainstream financial products.
However, it added that scaling investment will require better physical risk data, stronger project pipelines, targeted public-sector support and closer collaboration between governments, development finance institutions and private capital.
“These are replicable models, but scaling them will again require governments, DFIs and the private sector to work together,” Schapiro said.
