Caribbean identifies US$17.6bn in climate investment opportunities

More than US$17.5 bil­lion in na­tion­al and re­gion­al cli­mate in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties have been iden­ti­fied across the Caribbean fol­low­ing the 2026 Cli­mate Smart Sum­mit, with or­gan­is­ers now launch­ing an 18-month ini­tia­tive aimed at turn­ing those pro­pos­als in­to tan­gi­ble projects.

The Caribbean Cli­mate-Smart Ac­cel­er­a­tor (CC­SA) has re­leased its of­fi­cial 2026 Cli­mate Smart Sum­mit Re­port, out­lin­ing the out­comes of the June meet­ing in Bar­ba­dos and de­tail­ing plans to track part­ner­ships, fi­nanc­ing com­mit­ments and project im­ple­men­ta­tion over the next year and a half.

The two-day sum­mit brought to­geth­er en­tre­pre­neurs, gov­ern­ments, in­vestors, de­vel­op­ment fi­nance in­sti­tu­tions, phil­an­thropies, busi­ness­es and re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions to ac­cel­er­ate cli­mate-smart in­vest­ment through­out the Caribbean.

Built around the theme, “What’s Your Num­ber?”, the sum­mit en­cour­aged par­tic­i­pants to iden­ti­fy the fi­nanc­ing re­quired to ad­vance na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties, ex­pand busi­ness­es and sup­port cli­mate ac­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, par­tic­i­pants iden­ti­fied US$11.5 mil­lion in en­tre­pre­neur­ial ven­tures seek­ing in­vest­ment, US$17.574 bil­lion in na­tion­al and re­gion­al project op­por­tu­ni­ties, US$12.685 bil­lion in de­vel­op­ment fi­nance avail­able for de­ploy­ment and US$37 mil­lion in cat­alyt­ic phil­an­thropic fund­ing.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Caribbean Cli­mate-Smart Ac­cel­er­a­tor, Rac­quel Moses, said the sum­mit was de­signed to cre­ate last­ing part­ner­ships rather than end when del­e­gates re­turned home.

“The sum­mit was nev­er in­tend­ed to end when every­one left the room,” Moses said.

“It re­in­forced some­thing we’ve al­ways be­lieved: the Caribbean has no short­age of projects, in­no­v­a­tive en­tre­pre­neurs or com­mit­ted part­ners. What we need are more op­por­tu­ni­ties to bring them to­geth­er.”

She said the or­gan­i­sa­tion would spend the next 18 months work­ing with project own­ers, gov­ern­ments, in­vestors and phil­an­thropies to trans­form in­tro­duc­tions in­to part­ner­ships and in­vest­ment in­to im­ple­men­ta­tion, adding that this would be the mea­sure of the sum­mit’s suc­cess.

The CC­SA said it will mon­i­tor the progress of projects and fi­nanc­ing com­mit­ments that emerged from the sum­mit while iden­ti­fy­ing bar­ri­ers to im­ple­men­ta­tion and en­cour­ag­ing con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments, in­vestors, phil­an­thropies and the pri­vate sec­tor.

The re­port al­so high­lights the Cli­mate Smart Map, a re­gion­al in­vest­ment in­tel­li­gence plat­form de­signed to con­nect in­vest­ment-ready cli­mate projects with po­ten­tial fi­nanciers. The on­line plat­form en­ables en­tre­pre­neurs, gov­ern­ments and project own­ers to show­case op­por­tu­ni­ties while help­ing in­vestors and de­vel­op­ment part­ners iden­ti­fy projects seek­ing fund­ing.

Be­yond en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, the re­port says cli­mate ac­tion is cre­at­ing new in­dus­tries, em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and in­vest­ment prospects in re­new­able en­er­gy, sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, re­silient in­fra­struc­ture, clean tech­nol­o­gy and the blue econ­o­my. It al­so iden­ti­fies ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence as an emerg­ing tool that can im­prove re­new­able en­er­gy de­ploy­ment, strength­en cli­mate risk analy­sis, en­hance project prepa­ra­tion and make cli­mate ini­tia­tives more at­trac­tive to in­vestors.

The CC­SA is en­cour­ag­ing gov­ern­ments, en­tre­pre­neurs, in­vestors and de­vel­op­ment part­ners to con­tin­ue en­gag­ing be­yond the sum­mit as it tracks progress and works to con­vert the bil­lions of dol­lars in iden­ti­fied op­por­tu­ni­ties in­to im­ple­ment­ed cli­mate-smart projects across the Caribbean.