Sovereign Wealth Funds Pledge Increased Capital for Decarbonisation Projects

The pledge unites 28 funds—including Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the Abu Dhabi Mubadala Investment Company and Singapore’s GIC—behind a common framework that ties future allocations to verifiable emissions-reduction pathways and science-based targets. According to the newly signed SWF Climate Capital Compact, at least 15 percent of each signatory’s annual new commitments will now be channelled into renewables, grid modernisation, green hydrogen and carbon-capture infrastructure, effectively doubling the 2023 flow of $5 billion into these sectors.

Market data released alongside the pledge show SWFs have already accelerated private-market co-investments in clean energy by 66 percent since 2022, lifting the three-year rolling total to $8 billion and crowding in an estimated $24 billion from commercial banks and infrastructure funds.

Analysts at Boston Consulting Group estimate that every sovereign dollar committed at the project-finance level now attracts 3.2 dollars of third-party capital, a multiplier effect that has turned SWFs into “the de-risking engine of the energy transition.”

The capital surge is expected to focus on emerging economies, where the International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that 70 percent of all new clean-energy capacity must be installed to keep 1.5 °C within reach. A flagship vehicle launched today—the Green Capital Bridge—will begin disbursing $10 billion annually starting in 2026 to finance 131 GW of renewable capacity across Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America, prioritising grid-connected solar, onshore wind and green-hydrogen corridors that feed into EU and East-Asian demand centres.

Governance safeguards built into the Compact require annual disclosure of financed emissions, board-level oversight of climate risk and alignment with the UN-sponsored Value Creation Framework, a tool piloted this year that links decarbonisation metrics to EBITDA performance. Early case studies presented at the Forum show industrial portfolios that embedded the framework achieved an average 20 percent uplift in EBITDA within three years while cutting Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42 percent.

The immediate market reaction was positive. Shares of major turbine manufacturers and electrolyser producers closed up 4–6 percent on European exchanges, while green-bond spreads tightened by 8 basis points as traders priced in stronger sovereign demand. BloombergNEF raised its 2026 forecast for global renewable investment by $18 billion, citing the pledge as a “material accelerator”.

About the Global SWF Alliance