The purpose of the article is to identify the prerequisites, features, advantages and disadvantages of climate financing as a type of environmental and sustainable financing in combination with carbon markets and prospective ways of developing this activity. The article provides an overview of the definitions, essence, and interrelation of climate, environmental, and sustainable financing. Public climate finance should serve to create an enabling environment by providing technical assistance funds to help project implementers overcome various technical, financial and institutional barriers .Besides that, climate finance should, reduce the risks of direct capital investments by covering additional costs for targeted emissions reduction or adaptation measures. To achieve this, such funding can be provided either upfront to reduce capital costs or in the form of payment for results to offset operational costsAttention is paid to the main aspects and differences in the functioning of mandatory and voluntary carbon markets. The importance of combining state climate financing with carbon market instruments is argued. The main barriers to such a combination, which recipient countries have faced, are analyzed. It is proven that achieving many Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and implementing the Paris Climate Agreement requires a significant increase in the volumes of new climate financing with simultaneous maximization of ancillary benefits from various results, including for local communities. Recommendations have been formed to increase the level of standardization, harmonization of standards, and disclosure of non-financial information published by companies and used to assess climate risks.