The heat economy · Follow the money
Where funding for heat protection comes from,
and where it reaches.
A first, partial trace: 52 pieces of funding from public announcements, followed from who gave them to the cycles they could help break. It is a sample, not the whole picture, and it will grow.
About this section. We gathered this from public websites and reports in October 2026. Being listed does not mean we recommend, partner with or rank anyone, and none of it is financial advice. Companies describe their own products; we have not tested them, so please check details with them directly. If something is missing or out of date, tell us.
The flow
Amounts are of different kinds (investment rounds, approved envelopes, credit limits, guarantees) and are not a total. Funding without a published amount drops out of this view.
Select any band or label to follow it from end to end. A piece of funding linked to several cycles is shared equally between them.
The role money plays
Our reading of each piece of funding, from its type and stage. This is inferred, not stated by the funders.
Most of the funding we could trace is commercial growth for products with a paying customer. Fewer pieces take on risk, build evidence or build the field, and services such as paid rest or shared cool rooms rarely appear, because they are usually paid for from public budgets this trace does not cover.
Cycles we have not yet traced funding to 5
This may mean the money exists and we have not found it yet. If you know of funding for any of these, please tell us.
- The dry-soil loopHeat dries the soil. Dry soil can’t cool itself, so the land heats up faster.Ideas for this cycle
- The melting-ice loopHeat melts ice. Darker ground and water absorb more sunlight, and the melting speeds up.Ideas for this cycle
- The wildfire loopHeat dries forests into fuel. Fires release carbon and strip away the trees that cool the land.Ideas for this cycle
- The groundwater loopDry fields need more water, so farmers pump harder, aquifers fall and the shortage deepens.Ideas for this cycle
- The medical-debt trapTreatment costs push families into debt. Debt removes any option to rest, and working through the heat brings more illness.Ideas for this cycle
The health thread
US$3.3 bn declared · US$1.1 bn committed
Forty-eight countries have put a price on what they need each year to protect health from climate change; international funding committed in 2024 covered about a third (Lancet Countdown 2026). Clinics, heat-illness surveillance and health warnings sit inside that gap.
Risk finance
Now a section of its own
Money arranged before a heatwave arrives (insurance, regional pools, credit lines, funds released on a forecast and social protection that pays more in the heat) now has its own section. Every scheme answers one question: did it pay, and when? Amounts there are never added to the funding traced on this page, because they are different kinds of money.
Every piece of funding is also listed in a table on Funders and funding, and can be downloaded as a spreadsheet.