Tackling climate change demands solutions that are inclusive, scalable, and cost-effective. The sheer scale and cross-sectoral nature of the crisis—from extreme weather events to resource scarcity—underscore the need for shared solutions and infrastructures that enable the speed and reach that the climate crisis requires. Recognising the transformative potential of digital public goods (DPGs) to address this urgency, the DPGA Secretariat launched a dedicated Call for Collaborative Action in early 2025. This initiative focused on identifying, supporting, and scalable open solutions that strengthen global climate monitoring, mitigation, and/or adaptation efforts.

A key outcome of this collective work is the creation of the first version of a Framework for Identifying Digital Public Goods for Climate Action—a layered approach designed to identify highly relevant open-source solutions that can ideally serve as building blocks for shared global climate action infrastructure because of their potential for interoperability and scaling. For example, geospatial datasets or early-warning systems that could work with digital public infrastructure layers like digital IDs and real-time payments to work in lockstep to deliver much-needed tools for climate adaptation, mitigation, and monitoring to communities in need or at risk. In short, it’s about identifying DPGs and open-source projects that can be part of interconnected digital systems and solutions.

A Collaborative Effort: Building the Framework on Shared Knowledge

The development of this framework was rooted in collaboration, recognising that no single entity holds the complete set of answers to climate-tech development and adoption. The development process drew on invaluable input from over 20 organisations. It included in-depth interviews with diverse stakeholders, including representatives from organisations such as, FAO, PATH, MGI Brazil, ITS Rio, Norad, WRI, and UNDP India, as well as product owners from relevant DPGs, including Ushahidi, Brazil’s Rural Environmental Registry’s registration module, and Energy Access Explorer. This multi-stakeholder engagement was vital, as it helped ground the framework in technical feasibility and real-world needs, ensuring it has the potential to link open-source solutions directly to measurable climate outcomes and avoid duplicating existing efforts.

The Framework: A Four-Layered Funnel for Impact

The framework operationalises a four-layered funnel to identify relevant climate DPGs, which could ideally form digital building blocks for a shared global climate action infrastructure. As such, the framework can serve as a key guidance tool for assessing existing and future DPGs, helping to distinguish highly relevant, climate-focused DPGs.

The four layers are:

• Layer 1 - The DPG Standard: A solution must first comply with the DPG Standard.
• Layer 2 - Climate Relevance: The solution must demonstrate a direct connection to mitigation, adaptation, and/or monitoring, either through intentional design or proven, measurable outcomes in real-world implementations.
• Layer 3 - Infrastructural Approach: This is a crucial differentiator. Solutions must be designed for reusability and scalability, meeting relevant technical criteria such as modular architecture, product maturity, and advanced data management and interoperability. This ensures the DPG has the potential to become a foundational component of a national or regional climate strategy.
• Layer 4 - Outcomes and Measuring Climate Impact: This final layer aims to assess each solution against specific impact criteria across mitigation, adaptation, and/or monitoring. This means moving beyond simple adoption metrics (e.g., number of downloads) to linking digital use cases to tangible results (e.g. percentage of deforestation avoided).

This framework aims to ensure that climate DPGs are recognised for both their technical excellence and their demonstrable, quantifiable contributions to climate action.

Exemplifying a DPG that could meet framework requirement - the Rural Environmental Registry registration module, Brazil

The Rural Environmental Registry (RER) is an open-source module evolving from Brazil’s Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR) system, designed to manage geospatial environmental information on rural properties. As part of Brazil’s COP30 efforts, it was announced that RER's registration module (RM) is now a digital public good!

Maintained by the government of Brazil, RER-RM is a configurable, open-source solution that uses open standards to ensure multilingual access, integration with national systems such as gov.br, and interoperability with other environmental and land management platforms.

This modular design not only enables replication and adaptation across different contexts but also strengthens climate mitigation by improving land-use transparency, supports adaptation through locally tailored environmental management, and enhances monitoring through interoperable, verifiable data systems that improve accountability and policy alignment.

Looking ahead: The Climate DPG Collection and Calls to Action

The DPGA Secretariat will begin testing this framework to identify high-impact, potential DPGs, with the goal of creating a Climate DPGs Collection. This collection will help governments, NGOs, and communities more easily discover, deploy, and build confidence in these tools.

The ultimate success of this work depends on collective action.

We call on the international community—from developers and climate policymakers to donors and NGOs—to:

1. Identify and nominate additional DPGs and open-source projects for assessment.
2. Open-source relevant proprietary technologies and use this framework as a guide when developing new climate solutions.
3. Apply the Climate DPG Framework when building and designing open-source climate technologies.
4. Mobilise financing to scale and sustain these critical tools.

You can find the full report, which introduces the framework and provides a first mapping of digital solutions with potential for inclusion in the climate collection, here.