In the first episode of our new series Climate fight: the world's biggest negotiation, we're talking about climate finance – money pledged by the world's richest countries to help the poorest parts of the world adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Where is it being spent and is it really working?

Featuring Jessica Omukuti, COP26 Fellow in Climate Finance at the University of York and a research fellow on inclusive net zero at the University of Oxford, Harpreet Kaur Paul, a PhD candidate in climate justice at the University of Warwick and Alina Averchenkova, distinguished policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, London School of Economics and Political Science. Thanks to the reporting of Maryam Charles, we also hear from two residents of Zanzibar about why some climate finance can leave people feeling worse off. 

The Climate Fight podcast series is produced by Tiffany Cassidy with reporting from Maryam Charles in Zanzibar. Sound design is by Eloise Stevens and our series theme tune is by Neeta Sarl. The series editor is Gemma Ware. You can sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. A transcript of this episode is available here.

Climate fight: the world’s biggest negotiation is a podcast series supported by UK Research and Innovation, the UK’s largest public funder of research and innovation.

Further reading:

• Climate finance: rich countries aren’t meeting aid targets – could legal action force them? by Harpreet Kaur Paul, University of Warwick
• Climate adaptation finance is ineffective and must be more transparent, by Jessica Omukuti, University of York
• COP26: what’s the point of this year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow? by Federica Genovese, University of Essex and Patrick Bayer, University of Strathclyde 
• Climate change: convincing people to pay to tackle it is hard – treating it like a pension could help by David Comerford, University of Stirling