The financial needs for addressing climate change and biodiversity loss continue to grow as the challenges of these intertwined crises intensify. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, Parties have committed to mobilizing USD 200 billion per year by 2030 to support the achievement of biodiversity commitments. This ambition is complemented by a broader commitment to align financial flows and reform incentives that are harmful to biodiversity, forming a comprehensive agenda for biodiversity finance in the years ahead. Approaches to implement these commitments at the national level are now being shaped, particularly through the update of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) and related biodiversity finance plans (or similar instruments). The role of private finance is increasingly recognized as critical. 
Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Parties have committed to scaling up climate finance to support the goals of the Paris Agreement. At the UNFCCC COP29, in Baku, Parties formally agreed to the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which establishes a core annual climate finance goal of USD 300 billion by 2035, and a broader ambition to reach up to USD 1.3 trillion leveraging both public and private sources. Countries are also revising their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - the centrepiece of their national climate commitments. The approved NCQG and the updated NDCs together will define the trajectory of climate finance, helping to align public and private financial flows with low‑emission, climate‑resilient development pathways in the coming decade.
The size of the challenge calls for greater participation of private finance in jointly advancing the biodiversity and climate agendas. Coupled with coherent policies that consider both these issues, private finance can help close the biodiversity and climate finance gaps. Thus, harnessing synergies between NDCs and NBSAPs, particularly in terms of mobilizing and directing finance to deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity and climate, can support achieving the climate and biodiversity targets set at the national level. In this context, active engagement and greater awareness among private finance actors on integrated climate and biodiversity action can help inform this process given their role in allocating capital and their experience with innovative climate-finance instruments. This scoping document identifies four high-level entry points for collaboration between private financial institutions and governments to support integrated contributions to NDCs and NBSAPs:
i)    strengthening synergies between carbon markets and use of nature-based solutions
ii)    transition planning
iii)    local and national public-private partnerships
iv)    the integrated management of climate- and biodiversity-related risks
None of these entry points are entirely new, but this scoping exercise highlights them as candidates for deeper exploration to support integrated implementation of NDCs and NBSAPs. Addressing the biodiversity and climate agendas in isolation may limit both efficiency and effectiveness, particularly when it comes to scaling private finance contributions to national and international commitments.  Moving forward requires coordinated dialogue and sustained collaboration between private financial institutions, international cooperation bodies, national governments, subnational governments and financial regulators. Potential solutions include the development of joint climate-biodiversity sustainable finance taxonomies and integrated sectoral transition pathways, among other options. 
The opportunities presented in this scoping document are intended to contribute towards discussions on the relationship and the synergies between biodiversity and climate finance. The  focus is on contributing to the CBD strategy for resource mobilization for the period 2025–2030 (Decision 16/34), as well as informing discussions relevant to this topic in the run-up to the UNFCCC COP30, scheduled to take place in Belém, Brazil, in 2025.