Deadline: August 31, 2025
Applications are open for the Klarna AI for Climate Resilience Program 2025. The AI for Climate Resilience Program is a new initiative by Klarna that aims to support pioneering projects that leverage artificial intelligence for climate adaptation in underserved, climate-vulnerable regions.
The program will back projects that help local communities adapt to a changing climate and build long-term resilience. This includes for example strengthening food security, enhancing health systems, and building coastal resilience in regions that are particularly vulnerable to climate impacts.
Grants
- Grants of up to $300,000 will be awarded to selected projects, alongside an opportunity to get access to a support network of mentors, training and community of practice.
Eligibility
- They are inviting proposals from organizations working to reduce vulnerability of local communities to climate-related risks in low- and middle-income countries. Whether you’re using AI to support smallholder farmers, build early warning systems, or translate complex risk data into community action plans—they want to hear from you.
- Projects must demonstrate a clear use case for AI, a pathway to local ownership, and a commitment to responsible, collaborative innovation.
- Early-stage ideas are welcome too, especially from teams needing support to refine technical details or implementation plans.
The basic requirements that a project or proposal must meet to be considered for funding, support, or participation:
- Strategic alignment: The proposal addresses a concrete climate-impact challenge in line with the outlined focus for the call.
- Implementation-focused: The team will adapt, localize, scale or otherwise deploy a concrete solution; no “research-only”.
- Use of AI: The proposed use of AI has clear potential, is collaborative, and responsible. There should be a clear, compelling rationale for its use, demonstrating how AI directly contributes to addressing the project’s objectives. They also welcome early-stage applications from teams that need support in developing technical details further.
- Geographic focus: The project is supporting underserved, climate-vulnerable communities in low- and middle-income countries.
- Public-benefit purpose: The project must be committed to a public-benefit purpose, ensuring its outcomes primarily serve the public interest with tangible social and environmental benefits. For-profit entities must demonstrate how their project aligns with public-benefit goals and how they will ensure equitable outcomes that directly support local communities.
Evaluation Criteria
The evaluation criteria are used to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of the projects, helping to determine which projects to prioritize for funding. Criteria are applied generically to all proposals; but reviewers use context-specific judgment (e.g., agriculture vs. disaster preparedness) inside each parameter.
- Impact and equity potential: Likely, expected reduction in climate-related vulnerability, with clear benefits for vulnerable and underserved groups (e.g., women, youth, underprivileged, Indigenous peoples). This also includes whether the project is addressing the root causes of vulnerability, i.e. tackling the underlying factors contributing to these disparities.
- Local relevance and ownership: They prioritize initiatives that have been co-designed with local stakeholders, i.e. where needs have been defined by the communities that will benefit from the initiative and includes a realistic plan for local governance and long-term maintenance, as well as equitable IP, and benefit arrangements. The lead and partner organizations must demonstrate a strong, established presence on the ground and ensure that the project’s ownership and benefits are primarily controlled by local stakeholders.
- Technical and adoption readiness: They prioritize projects that demonstrate a readiness to adopt AI. This includes not only the robustness and documented performance of existing tools or similar technologies but also the potential for developing new, AI-driven solutions. They encourage organizations that have not yet adopted AI to explore its potential and consider how it can enhance their approach. Evaluation will focus on the usability, scalability, and alignment of technology with local capacity, as well as the presence of a clear user-support plan.
- Risk Mitigation & Safeguards: Projects should demonstrate a clear strategy for mitigating technological, social, and environmental risks. This includes addressing biases in AI, ensuring transparency, and preventing unintended consequences. Proposals should outline how they will manage social risks, such as exacerbating inequalities, and environmental risks, such as ecological harm.
- Team capacity and quality of partnerships: Track record and team competence, relevant partnerships in place for successful implementation, clarity of roles and responsibilities.
- Catalytic effect: Credible pathway for replication/scalability—via policy uptake, additional funding or open-source dissemination—so benefits extend beyond the initial site.
- Longevity: They prioritize projects that have a pathway for long-term implementation and capacity building beyond the project period.
Application
For more information, visit Klarna AI for Climate Resilience Program.
