The developing world is facing a major debt crisis, limiting their ability to spend on economic recovery for COVID-19 or climate action. Creditor countries — specifically China, the largest bilateral creditor to developing countries — can exchange this for clear, verifiable climate action and investments in healthcare.
Climate change doesn't feature prominently in the World Bank's COVID-19 response yet. As countries turn to long-term recovery, the Bank should prioritize environment- and climate-friendly policy lending programs.
Tracking climate finance can help Fiji and other countries better meet their climate change goals.
Integrating adaptation across sustainable development initiatives can spur resilient growth, safeguard development gains from climate change impacts and help decision-makers avoid investments that unintentionally increase vulnerability. New research from WRI shines a spotlight on how two counties in Kenya are using innovative, local-level climate funds to move from mainstreaming adaptation planning to action.
If 2019 was a strong year for MDB climate finance, why is overall growth slowing? Here are 11 takeaways from the multilateral development bank joint report.
The public financial institutions tasked with funding sustainable development worldwide have outlined a framework for aligning operations with the Paris agreement, but they need to start announcing when they'll move off unaligned projects, and how projects will qualify.
This guiding document should outline how the GCF will achieve 1.5-aligned ambition, approach adaptation, avoid watering down the quality of its programs, and empower developing country institutions.
Advocates of climate finance in Congress have spent the last three years on the defensive, working to maintain current levels of spending. But a rapid scale up of investment in climate action is urgently needed, and public finance plays a key role.
Today in Madrid, 51 finance ministries re-committed to fighting climate change together through the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. Read on for a statement from Leo Martinez-Diaz, Global Director, Finance Center, World Resources Institute.
The demand for green bonds is high, but only 3-5% of the proceeds go to climate resilience. That's in part because there hasn't been a standard for how to evaluate whether a project will increase resilience to climate change — until now.
This guide explains in clear, non-technical language the key outstanding policy issues the Green Climate Fund will need to decide on. It is aimed at all GCF stakeholders to be an educational tool, an introduction to key issues, and a reference guide.
Sovereign parametric insurance can finance disaster response when extreme weather events like droughts or hurricanes cause emergencies in developing countries.
This paper analyzes the three sovereign parametric disaster risk insurance pools serving developing countries: CCRIF SPC, the African Risk Capacity, and the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company. It provides detailed recommendations for each of the pools and their stakeholders and broader recommendations to improve the availability of disaster risk finance for developing countries.
As developing countries increasingly experience the impacts of climate change, ensuring that they have efficient access to adaptation funding is ever more urgent.
Measuring the impact of local adaptation programs is challenging, especially when decision-makers integrate climate resilience across broader sustainable development initiatives. New research from WRI examines these challenges – from balancing country-specific and portfolio-wide adaptation assessment needs to integrating resilience elements into existing development monitoring and evaluation systems – and offers methodological solutions that adaptation practitioners around the world can implement.
Strengthening the resilience of sustainable development in a warming world
Development banks committed record funds to climate finance in 2018, but key vulnerabilities in adaptation finance, cofinancing and portfolio alignment persist, and some institutions even backslid. To meet 2020 goals, MDBs need to kick it into overdrive.
This paper focuses on transformative approaches to climate change adaptation in livestock production. It synthesizes the state of adapting key components of livestock systems, key challenges for adaptation, planning questions, and recommendations for transformative adaptation.
When the Green Climate Fund received its first round of funding, contributions were more or less arbitrary. This time around, countries have an opportunity to root their contributions in objective measures of capacity, responsibility and ambition.
The World Bank plays a pivotal role in enabling sustainable, low-carbon development and climate action. Its next president should be a leader on the issue.