Climate adaptation funds are not reaching frontline communities: what needs to be done about it
COMMUNITIES around the world face increasingly severe and frequent impacts from climate change. They are on the “frontlines” of droughts, flooding, desertification and sea level rise. International climate finance is supposed to help. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world’s wealthiest countries pledged US$50 billion annually to support climate adaptation among those “particularly vulnerable” to climate change. Climate adaptation is the adjustments humans make to reduce exposure to climate risk. KATHERINE BROWNE, Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute Eight years later, it is clear that this money is failing to reach vulnerable “frontline communities”, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, Mozambique, Zimbabwe,…