Fonds Klima schützen

The “Klima schützen” donation fund run by Effektiv Spenden pools donations for organisations that cut greenhouse-gas emissions with the greatest possible leverage. It follows the Climate Fund run by Founders Pledge; the recommended organisations have additionally been assessed by independent evaluators such as Giving Green.¹ The focus is not on individual behaviour but on political and technological change, above all in sectors for which no mature zero-emission process yet exists: cement, steel and aviation fuel.¹

Why “Klima schützen” matters

Climate change is no longer a forecast; it is a reading. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) puts the global mean surface temperature for 2025 at 1.44 °C above the 1850–1900 average, with an uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C; across the three years 2023–2025 it already stands at 1.48 °C.² The 1.5 °C named as the target of the 2015 Paris Agreement is no longer a scenario for the end of the century.³ Single years are not yet long-term warming, but the margin has shrunk to tenths of a degree.

No year falls outside the pattern any more: the eleven years from 2015 to 2025 are the eleven warmest in all eight datasets covering the 176-year record.²

The larger shift happens where nobody sees it. Between 2024 and 2025 alone, the upper 2,000 metres of the ocean absorbed as much additional heat as the world generated in electricity in 2024 roughly 200 times over. That is the WMO’s own comparison, drawing on a study led by Lijing Cheng at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.² That heat stays in the system, whatever is decided tomorrow.

To hold 1.5 °C over the long run, global emissions would have to fall by 43% by 2030.³ They are still rising:

Annual CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels and industry, worldwide. Data from the Global Carbon Budget, processed by Our World in Data.⁴

They are spread very unevenly across sectors:

Greenhouse-gas emissions by sector, in CO₂ equivalents over a 100-year timescale. Processed by Our World in Data.⁵

Electricity and road transport have proven low-emission alternatives. Cement, steel and aviation do not yet have them at scale, and that is where the fund concentrates.¹

How the fund selects

Evaluation and grantmaking are not in the same hands:

• Founders Pledge is Effektiv Spenden’s research partner for climate. For individual organisations, Giving Green acts as a second independent evaluator.⁶
• Effektiv Spenden pools the donations in the “Klima schützen” fund and issues tax receipts for Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.¹

Founders Pledge describes its own standard as looking for funding opportunities that other donors neglect, for solutions that change entire systems, and for measures that reduce the largest risks.⁷ It reports that the Climate Fund has raised $121 million to date and granted out $75.9 million, of which $40 million in 2025.⁷

The recommendations are not fixed. Effektiv Spenden writes that “at least twice a year, and in exceptional cases more often”, it sits down with its research partners.⁸ Who receives funding can change with each of those rounds.

Who is supported

The allocation of the funds raised in the second half of 2025 is not yet complete. The most recent completed round is the one for the first half of 2025.⁹

Earlier rounds were spread more widely. From the first half of 2024, Carbon180, Clean Air Task Force, Future Cleantech Architects, The Good Food Institute, Food Frontier and Project Tempo received about €1.4 million between them, forwarded in August and September 2024.⁹

The fund is deliberately not a fixed list. It is meant to allow a response to needs that arise at short notice, rather than tying donations permanently to particular organisations.⁸

Impact and transparency

Effektiv Spenden puts the difference to the common alternative like this: every euro given to the most promising climate organisations reduces 15 to 30 times more emissions than conventional carbon offsetting.¹

These figures rest on Founders Pledge estimates that put Clean Air Task Force’s cost at $0.1 to $1 per tonne of CO₂ averted, against roughly €30 per tonne for conventional offsetting.¹¹ Founders Pledge itself states that every dollar invested in the innovation ecosystem leads to more than one tonne of avoided emissions.⁷

How robust such calculations are is a matter of expert debate. Lennart Stern of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research considers it “fundamentally plausible that improving political decisions can have great leverage”.¹¹ Jonas Grauel of the consumer advice centre Verbraucherzentrale NRW cautions that the underlying assessment “estimates possible effects primarily through scenario modelling based on assumptions, not on empirical evidence”.¹¹ The core of the objection is attribution: how much of a policy success is down to any single organisation cannot be quantified exactly, and small changes to that assumption shift the cost-per-tonne calculation noticeably.¹¹

We consider that objection fair, and we therefore report the range for what it is: a carefully modelled expected value, not a measured effect. It is not a reason to do nothing. The most powerful levers in climate action, namely research, technology development and sound regulation, resist exact attribution precisely because they work through many actors over many years. Funding only what can be proven to the tonne moves money away from what works and towards what is easy to measure. Uncertainty about the size of the effect is a reason to spread funding widely and revisit it regularly (this fund does both), but not a reason to hold the money back.

The work can be followed in three places: Founders Pledge publishes its analyses and the Climate Fund’s figures,⁷ Giving Green publishes its own assessments of individual organisations,⁶ and Effektiv Spenden lists every allocation round with recipients, amounts and the date the money was transferred,⁹ and reports on it on its blog.⁸ Tax receipts are sent automatically at the end of February of the following year.¹

Why the Wealth for the World Fund funds “Klima schützen”

Climate change is one of the largest problems of our time, and it conditions every other area we fund. Whether a child grows up healthy depends on whether the harvest is enough and whether the region stays habitable. Where droughts and floods become more frequent, households lose their livelihoods, the transmission zones of diseases such as malaria shift, health systems come under strain and people are displaced. The conditions under which democratic institutions and civil society work deteriorate with every one of those crises. Climate action therefore does not sit alongside our other disbursements; it helps decide whether their effect holds. A stable climate is the precondition for almost every other kind of progress.

Among the ways of funding climate action, Wealth for the World chooses this fund because it answers the decisive question transparently and scientifically: which measures achieve most per euro donated. The selection rests on the analysis of a specialised research institute, it is made afresh every six months, and every round is published with recipients and amounts. Where an effect cannot be attributed exactly, that is stated rather than papered over. It makes the selection checkable in a field that has no cost per life saved.