As climate change leads to a seemingly endless stream of weather disasters around the world, countries are struggling to adapt to the new reality. Preparing to better withstand hurricanes, floods, heat waves, droughts and wildfires will take hundreds of billions of dollars.
And then there is confronting the root cause of climate change—the burning of fossil fuels like coal, gasoline and oil—by transitioning to clean energies like wind and solar.
That will take trillions of dollars.
Enter climate finance, a general term that means different things to different people but boils down to: paying for projects to adapt to and combat the cause of climate change. Financing related to climate change is especially important for developing countries, which don’t have the same resources or access to credit that rich countries do.
International mega banks, funded by taxpayer dollars, are the biggest, fastest-growing source of climate finance for the developing world. Called multilateral development banks because they get contributions from various countries, there are only a handful of these banks in the world, the World Bank the largest among them.
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How these banks allocate resources are some of the weightiest decisions made in defining how poorer nations can respond to climate change. They were a key reason why, in 2022, the world met a goal countries had set in 2009 to supply developing nations with $100 billion annually to address climate change.
At the annual U.N. climate conference that opens Monday in Azerbaijan, global leaders are expected to discuss how to generate trillions of dollars for climate finance in the years to come. The nonprofit research group Climate Policy Initiative estimates the world needs about five times the current annual amount of climate financing to limit warming to 1.5 C (2.7 degrees F) since the late 1800s. Currently, global average temperatures are about 1.3 C (2.3 degrees F) higher.
A new goal needs to reach higher and hold institutions and governments accountable to their promises, said Tim Hirschel-Burns, an expert at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center.
“The core of it is getting a goal that is going to catalyze the actions that fills the really significant climate finance gap that developing countries face, which is much bigger than $100 billion,” he said.
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As the international community has come to accept the reality of climate change, the debate has shifted to the question of where the money to fund the energy transition will come from, said Dharshan Wignarajah, director of Climate Policy Initiative’s London-based office.
“The question is not ‘are we going to transition?’, but ‘how quickly can we engineer the transition?’” said Wignarajah, who helped lead the climate talks, called the Conference of Parties, when the United Kingdom was host in 2021. “That has forced finance to be ever-more prominent at the COP discussions, because ultimately it comes down to who pays.”
FILE – People examine the damage at an area badly affected by a flash flood in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, Indonesia, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Ali Nayaka, File)
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Developing countries most dependent on multilateral banks
Developing nations are much more reliant on these banks for financing climate projects than industrialized countries.
In the U.S. and Canada, commercial banks and corporations provided funding for more than half of climate-friendly projects in 2022, according to Climate Policy Initiative. In sub-Saharan Africa, those private lenders only accounted for 7%.
This is because it is harder for developing countries to get low interest rates.
“If you’re Kenya, and you want to borrow from private lenders, they might charge you 10% interest rates because your credit rating isn’t very good,” Hirschel-Burns said.
But the multilateral banks have better credit ratings than many countries do. For example, the International Development Association — an arm of the World Bank and the top international aid provider to Kenya — has the highest possible rating from Moody’s Investor Service, while Kenya itself has a junk rating.
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The banks borrow money with that better rating, then lend to developing countries in turn, offering a more reasonable rate than governments could get if they borrowed directly from private lenders.
Some bank projects work against climate goals
The multilateral banks’ development goals are wide-ranging. They seek to improve people’s health and the environment, expand energy access and end poverty. Addressing energy access has meant the banks have provided billions of dollars for fossil fuel power plants, according to an AP analysis, though their policies have improved and fewer such projects have been funded in recent years.
Investment in fossil fuels continues to rise worldwide, reaching $1.1 trillion in 2024, according to the International Energy Agency. And multilateral banks continue to rank among the biggest funders of fossil fuel-prolonging projects, helping to “lock in a high-carbon pathway” for countries, according to a report by the Clean Air Fund, which lobbies for the funding of projects to improve air quality.
“This is development aid we’re talking about, and it should be assisting countries to leapfrog,” said Jane Burston, CEO of the Clean Air Fund, referring to the idea that developing countries could industrialize with renewable energies and skip over development that rich nations historically made with fossil fuels.
“It’s baffling why development assistance is being given to something that continues to make people unhealthy as well as harms the planet,” she added.
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FILE – James Tshuma, a farmer in Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe, stands in the middle of his dried up crop field amid a drought, in Zimbabwe, March, 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)
Seemingly contradictory actions can be seen in a loan made by an arm of the World Bank, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It loaned $105 million toward rehabilitating coal plants in India, with their last loans toward the project going out in 2018, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Coal spews carbon pollution, contributing to climate change and creating breathing problems for people who are exposed. However, the improvements made coal plants more efficient and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, according to project documents.
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The Clean Air Fund’s report estimated the World Bank provided $2.7 billion in “fossil fuel prolonging finance” between 2018 and 2022. During that time, the bank also loaned about 32 times the amount for renewables as they did for non-renewables in India, including $120 million for rooftop solar.
“Renewable energy support is always our first choice as we work to provide access to electricity to the nearly 700 million people who still cannot power their homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses,” a World Bank spokesperson said in a statement.
The bank’s policies still “selectively support natural gas as a transition fuel” if its research shows the project is low risk to the climate, the spokesperson said. The bank’s recent policies require rigorous vetting for every project to make sure its investments reduce climate impacts.
The World Bank delivered $42.6 billion in climate finance in its most recent fiscal year, a 10% increase from the year before. And at the most recent COP, the bank promised nearly half of its lending will soon go toward climate finance.
In Vietnam, about half of power generation comes from fossil fuels, primarily coal power. The Asian Development Bank loaned about $900 million on coal in Vietnam, with their spending on the fossil fuel in the country ending in 2017. The bank’s updated climate policies “will not support coal mining, processing, storage, and transportation, nor any new coal-fired power generation,” the bank said in a statement. The bank put $9.8 billion toward climate finance in 2023, and aims to finance $100 billion in climate-friendly projects between 2019 and 2030.
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The country’s biggest growth area for energy is in wind. The Global Energy Monitor ranks Vietnam seventh in the world in planned wind power. And the Asian Development Bank committed about $60 million in loans toward wind energy in Vietnam between 2021 and 2022.
FILE – Residents rescue kittens from the roof of a flooded home in Cobija, Bolivia, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)
The banks have made broad commitments in recent years to align with the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement. But those promises leave pathways open to continue funding fossil fuels, said Bronwen Tucker, global public finance co-manager at Oil Change International.
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According to the green group’s monitoring of the banks’ commitments, all nine of the major banks tracked can fund gas projects in at least some cases. Rich countries should step in and fill the trillions of dollars in need for climate action with donations to less developed countries “to avoid climate breakdown and save lives,” Tucker said.
“The MDBs can’t be climate bankers if they are still fossil bankers,” she said. “Relying on banks that are locking in fossil fuels and the worst-ever debt crisis is not working.”
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Tech company Oracle (ORCL) said on Sunday that it planned to raise $45bn (£32.8bn) to $50bn in 2026 to fund the expansion of its cloud infrastructure business.
The company said that it planned to achieve this funding target using a combination of debt and equity financing.
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“Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD (AMD), Meta (META), Nvidia (NVDA), OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others,” it said in a statement, according to a Reuters report.
Oracle (ORCL) shares hovered just below the flatline in pre-market trading on Monday morning and are trading 3.4% in the red over one year.
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Media and entertainment giant Disney (DIS) was in focus on Monday morning, following a Bloomberg report that it was close to picking theme-park division chairman Josh D’Amaro as the company’s next CEO.
According to the Bloomberg report, Disney’s (DIS) board is aligning on promoting D’Amaro into the role and will vote on naming a new CEO in the coming week, citing people familiar with the matter. D’Amaro would take over from Bob Iger, who returned as CEO in 2022, having served in the role from 2005 to 2020.
Disney (DIS) had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK’s request for comment at the time of writing.
The company is set to report its fiscal first quarter earnings later in the day on Monday. Disney (DIS) shares hovered just below the flatline in pre-market trading on Monday morning and are 0.6% in the red over one year.
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In Asia, shares in Hong Kong-listed electric vehicle (EV) company BYD slid 7.3% on Monday, after reporting a drop in sales in January.
BYD (1211.HK) said on Sunday that it had sold 210,051 vehicles in January, which was 30.1% lower than 300,538 it sold in the same period last year.
The company sold 83,249 battery electric vehicles last month, which was 33.6% lower than January last year and it delivered 122,269 plug-in hybrid EVs, down 28.5%.
Pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca (AZN.L) will begin trading its ordinary shares on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday for the first time.
AstraZeneca (AZN.L), which is listed on the UK’s FTSE 100 (^FTSE) and Sweden’s OMX Stockholm 30 (^OMX), previously had American depositary shares (ADS) listed on the Nasdaq (^IXIC).
Michel Demaré, chair of AstraZeneca, said: “This will allow even more investors to participate in AstraZeneca’s future. Our harmonised listing across New York, London and Stockholm reflects strong shareholder support for our growth strategy and positions AstraZeneca to deliver more innovative medicines to more patients around the world.”
AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) London-listed shares were up 1% on Monday morning.
On the London market, gold producer Endeavour Mining (EDV.L) was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 (^FTSE), with shares slumping 7.2% at the time of writing.
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The fall in Endeavour (EDV.L) shares was driven by a drop in gold (GC=F) prices, as well as other metals, adding to losses from Friday’s session, when US president Donald Trump named Kevin Warsh as his nomination for the new Federal Reserve chairman.
Read more: Stocks to watch this week: Alphabet, Amazon, Palantir, Novo Nordisk and Shell
Wealth Club chief investment strategist Susannah Streeter said: “The shock unravelling of prices demonstrates just how concerned investors had been about perceived attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve.”
“There had been concerns that a Trump cheerleader would be installed at the central bank, which could lead to politically led decision-making, and risks of runaway inflation,” she said. “But now financial industry heavyweight Kevin Warsh has been anointed as successor, with deep Fed experience, he’s not expected to be a pushover and that’s sparked this big reversal of safe-haven positions.”
Read more:
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AUSTIN, Texas, Feb. 1, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL) today announced its full calendar year 2026 plan to fund the expansion of its rapidly growing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. Oracle is raising money in order to build additional capacity to meet the contracted demand from our largest Oracle Cloud Infrastructure customers, including AMD, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, TikTok, xAI and others.
Oracle expects to raise $45 to $50 billion of gross cash proceeds during the 2026 calendar year. The company plans to achieve its funding objective by using a balanced combination of debt and equity financing to maintain a solid investment-grade balance sheet.
On the equity side, Oracle plans to raise approximately half of its 2026 funding through a combination of equity-linked and common equity issuances. This is expected to include an initial issuance of mandatory convertible preferred securities, representing a modest portion of the overall equity funding, as well as a newly authorized at-the-market equity program of up to $20 billion. The company plans to issue equity from the at-the-market program flexibly over time at prevailing market prices, based on market conditions and capital needs.
On the debt side, Oracle intends to complete a single, one-time issuance of investment-grade senior unsecured bonds early in 2026 to cover the other half of the company’s planned funding for the year. Oracle does not expect to issue additional bonds during calendar year 2026 beyond this transaction.
This funding plan reflects Oracle’s commitment to maintaining an investment-grade rating, prudent capital allocation, balance sheet strength, and transparency with investors as the company continues to expand its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure business. These transactions have been approved by the Oracle Board of Directors.
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Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC will be leading the senior unsecured bond offering, and Citigroup will be leading the at-the-market issuance and mandatory convertible preferred equity offering.
About Oracle Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud.
Trademarks Oracle, Java, MySQL, and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company—ushering in the new era of cloud computing.
“Safe Harbor” Statement: This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding Oracle’s expected funding needs, anticipated credit ratings, capital markets transactions, and financing strategy. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied due to various risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ are: changes in the timing of any customer’s purchases or ability to fund its commitments; delays or development and/or operational problems with the construction of implementation of any of the data centers; and new or different commercial opportunities that cause the Company to reevaluate its near-term capital needs. Oracle undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
Oracle Corporation may file a registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents Oracle Corporation has filed with the SEC for more complete information about Oracle Corporation and this offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, you may obtain a copy by visiting www.oracle.com/investor, calling our Investor Relations Department at 1-650-506-4073, writing to Investor Relations Department, Oracle Corporation, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood City, California 94065 or sending an email to [email protected].
XRP was above $3 in 2025, and it might soon be once again.
Can XRP(XRP 3.09%) hit $3 sometime in the next 18 months, given that its price is near $1.80 today?
I think it’s more likely to happen than not, barring any major market hiccup. There are three numbers in particular that each count as a reason.
Image source: Getty Images.
These numbers outline XRP’s paths to adoption
The first number, 10 drops, is denominated in a unit you’re probably not familiar with. It’s the XRP Ledger’s (XRPL’s) typical base transaction fee, and it’s equal to 0.00001 XRP per transaction. So even if XRP’s price reached $3, that fee would still be just $0.00003 — you and pretty much anyone else can afford to pay that fee over and over, and it will never add up to be more than a negligible amount.
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In fact, its fees are so cheap that they’re usually lower than other dirt cheap chains, like Solana. In other words, for financial institutions that want to move money inexpensively, the network is a great choice for their needs, and if they decide to use it, they will first need to park that money on the XRPL, buying up some XRP in the process to use as working capital.
Today’s Change
(-3.09%) $-0.05
Current Price
$1.65
Key Data Points
Market Cap
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$100B
Day’s Range
$1.56 – $1.70
52wk Range
$1.56 – $3.65
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Volume
6.4B
The second number is also an important one for attracting financial institutions to the network, and it’s 1 XRP. The XRP Ledger requires a base reserve of 1 XRP in a wallet address, so there’s a small amount that must remain locked to reduce spam. This reserve is not a toll, but it does encourage adoption, as new users do not need to prefund much of anything in their wallet to get started, and users who might need many hundreds (or even tens of thousands) of different wallets won’t find the start-up costs to be prohibitive.
The third number is denominated in dollars, and it’s $45. That’s a common fee that people need to pay for an outgoing international wire transfer at a major U.S. bank. With a price that high, sending small amounts is a nonstarter, which likely prevents a lot of transfers that might lead to economic activity.
Using XRP slashes that cost to practically nothing, and it also ensures that the transaction takes moments instead of days.
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How these numbers could eventually add up to $3
Obviously, these three numbers aren’t new in XRP’s history, nor do they guarantee that its price will go to $3. They’re just pieces of proof that the network will have an edge in getting financial institutions to use it to manage their tokenized assets and transfer money internationally.
For these to translate into a higher coin price, there needs to be actual adoption that creates more usage of the chain, which itself needs to lead to more demand for holding XRP. Ripple, the company that issues XRP, is hard at work driving that adoption by developing new capabilities for the XRPL, and interlinking its set of financial services to it. For instance, it now issues a stablecoin native to the XRPL, which creates a capital base that institutional investors can tap for liquidity using one of Ripple’s services.
All Ripple’s efforts benefit from the fact that cheaper movement of capital using XRP lowers the threshold for experimentation. When paired with its commitment to developing its on-chain capital base, more users will arrive seeking to tap that capital, and with them, more demand for XRP as a transactional asset and as a liquidity tool. This investment thesis is playing the long game, as accumulating the capital base needed to attract the biggest financial companies will take quite a while.
So, is getting to $3 likely? If the network’s adoption keeps compounding and attracts sustained usage, these numbers support the claim that XRP has a cost advantage big enough to thrive. Just don’t expect it to happen immediately because there are a lot of other factors affecting the coin’s price that could make the path slower.
