Adaptation

Description

Climate adaptation programs support country response to adapt to and build resilience against the effects of climate change, including extreme and frequent weather events such as intolerable heat, droughts, floods, fire, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification. Funds also reduce climate impacts on critical infrastructure, agricultural productivity, and public health.

Use of Funds

Funds support bilateral adaptation efforts and are used to prevent storm surges in coastal communities, stabilize areas prone to landslides following fire and floods, reduce pollution, prevent disasters, improve soil health, and reduce food insecurity through regenerative, sustainable agriculture. Funds for multilateral efforts could be used to support the Adaptation Fund, which finances “adaptation and resilience activities in developing countries that are vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.”

Justification

•  Climate change could pull 132 million people back into extreme poverty by 2030.
• Without adaptation, climate change may depress growth in global agriculture yields up to 30% by 2050, affecting more than 500 million small farms globally.
• Four billion people—almost two-thirds of the world’s population—experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year.
• Global funding would need to increase ten-fold, to $300 billion a year by 2030, to meet the U.N. Environment Programme’s estimates of what is needed to respond to escalating climate risks.
• By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa could see as many as 86 million internal climate migrants; East Asia and the Pacific, 49 million; South Asia, 40 million; North Africa, 19 million; Latin America, 17 million; and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 5 million.