Roadmap to $100bn Must Specify Adaptation Finance
26 May 2016
Between now and Marrakech, developed delegates should start reflecting how much adaptation matters to the continent that is going to host COP22. Africa (along with many other countries, to be sure) is already bearing the brunt of climate change: crops are failing, water is diminishing, and lives and livelihoods are under threat from climate change. These mounting impacts are underscoring the frightening lack of adaptive capacity in many developing countries and communities, and the need for donor countries to ramp up financial assistance to enhance adaptation and resilience.
ECO calls for the African COP to pick up this unfinished business from Paris. Mark a turning point in adaptation finance. As developed countries get serious (finally!) about drafting a roadmap on how they will meet their $100-billion-a-year promise, they should explicitly spell out to what extent they will significantly increase annual adaptation finance by 2020. It’s not that hard. The GCF managed to do it. They set a goal to allocate 50% of their resources to adaptation. Surely developed countries can set a similar target for adaptation finance.
What’s needed at COP22 is not window dressing, but a real change increasing adaptation assistance to developing countries. This doesn’t mean shifting around existing aid budgets. It means new sources of public finance are put in place.
Just a number is not enough. We must also develop scenarios on how to ensure increased adaptation finance reaches the most vulnerable communities, people and populations, looking specifically at the needs of LDCs, SIDS, Africa and other highly vulnerable countries with low capacity. The roadmap should empower recipient countries in using climate finance by dedicating significant investment in readiness, capacity building and direct access models.