No Planet B: Financing Climate Adaptation

Extreme natural disasters loom even if we succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5°C to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Already, Californians are choking on smoke, North Africans are running out of water, Southeast Asians are fleeing from floods¹ and major cities around the world risk inundation as sea levels rise. Unfortunately, there will be no escaping the need for projects that help us adapt to a changing climate. As governments and supranationals issue bonds to pay for them, they could drive a large-scale expansion of the green bond market.

The Netherlands leads other countries in its issuance of green bonds whose proceeds are tied to climate adaption projects. An unsurprising fact as the Dutch are famous for their ability to live in harmony with their many in-land rivers. Yet the chart below may soon change, as the UN estimates that the annual amount spent globally on adapting to climate-change needs to be five to 10 times higher than current spend,² and countries continue to contend with more aggressive weather caused by climate-change.