Whether from public or private financial sources, climate change investments as they stand are completely inadequate. More importantly, the premise upon which they are built is totally inadequate. The assumption, or aspiration, is to use public finances to catalyse and mobilise private sector capital on a scale sufficient to achieve net zero by 2050. But this is contradictory to the very basis of capitalism and free markets. If it were profitable to invest in climate-related projects there would be no shortage of funds. Philanthropy will not fill the gap. As the Paulson Institute put it, ‘Philanthropy is a way to distribute profits. Investing is a way that private sector generates profit’ (Paulson Institute, The Nature Conservancy, Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (2024) Financing Nature: Closing the Global Biodiversity Financing Gap https://www.paulsoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Updated-10.23.20-FINANCING-NATURE_Exec.-Summary_Final-with-endorsements_101420.pdf ). While the terms ‘funding’ and ‘financing’ are often used inter-changeably, funding better relates to how projects are paid for, while financing is how their upfront costs are paid for, publicly or privately (World-nuclear.org (May 2024) Financing Nuclear Energy https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/financing-nuclear-energy ).