Adaptation Finance

Public and private money directed at helping countries and communities prepare for, and cope with, the effects of climate change — flood defences, water management, drought-tolerant agriculture, early-warning systems, resilient infrastructure. It is distinct from mitigation finance, which pays for cutting emissions. Because the benefits are local and often hard to price in a market, adaptation has historically drawn a smaller share of tracked climate finance than mitigation.

Why it matters in the room

The balance between adaptation and mitigation finance, and what may be counted as adaptation finance at all, are recurring agenda items. Expect definitional questions — grant versus loan, new versus reallocated, who reports what — to matter as much as headline volumes.