High-Level Champions and Arsht-Rock mobilize the private financial sector to unlock climate adaptation and resilience finance and projects

Washington D.C., 25 May 2023 – While we have only seven years to halve global emissions, up to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. To better protect them, we need a stronger collaboration between the public and private financial sector to scale adaptation and resilience finance to the needed USD $155-330 billion by 2030–focusing on vulnerable groups and communities.

In the run up to COP28, the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions and the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council (Arsht-Rock) have partnered to launch a dialogue process to mobilize concrete actions and contributions by the private financial sector—particularly institutional investors, the insurance industry and the banking community- to unlock climate adaptation and resilience finance.

While the private sector contributes to climate mitigation measures, primarily through funding from International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), its financing of climate adaptation solutions does not exceed 3 percent globally. This partnership will facilitate the contribution of private finance actors to the current international public finance processes and identify opportunities towards adaptation and resilience finance.

“The financial sector can play a transformative role in unlocking the capital needed for climate adaptation and resilience. We are excited to deepen our partnership with the High-Level Champions and lend our expertise to further engage these partners, advance that goal, and ultimately protect more people from climate impacts,” said Kathy Baughman McLeod, Senior Vice-President and Director of the Adrienne Arsht – Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock) at the Atlantic Council.

In addition, the process will elicit private sector recommendations for future public financial sector reforms. With major upcoming public processes like the Summit for a New Global Finance Pact, the G7 Global Shield consultations, and the Loss and Damage funding arrangements deliberations through theTransitional Committee, it is a critical time to explore the role and contributions that the private sector could bring to this agenda.

The resulting analyses, recommendations, and synthesis reports will also contribute to the implementation of the 2030 target-orientated Sharm El Sheikh Adaptation Agenda launched by the COP27 Presidency and the High-Level Champions in 2022 and amplify the work of the Race to Resilience campaign.

“Last year, COP27 showed that an ambitious agenda on adaptation action can be moved forward through adopting the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda,” said Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP27. “Non-state actors, including private sector financiers, need to accelerate their actions to address the current adaptation and resilience gaps, including through unlocking the needed finance. With that, we welcome the partnership with Arsht-Rock, to facilitate strategic engagement with the private financial sector to further advance adaptation action and investments.”

For any questions, please contact: media@climatechampions.team