At what cost: How chronic gaps in adaptation finance expose the world's poorest people to climate chaos

The impacts of these climate challenges are not inevitable. This report deals with the financing of two existing measures - climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR) - to better manage and reduce the risk of climate-related disasters and enable people to cope with multiple shocks and stresses. The report finds that there is insufficient investment in preparing for the impacts of climate change and money is not going to the countries and people that need it most, and recommends the following among others (pp. 9-12):

1. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) should be mainstreamed into coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response and recovery.
2. Recovery packages should endeavour to advance climate-smart, risk-informed development and donors should screen funding for potential areas to ‘dual-purpose’ funding to build resilience to more than one risk.
3. Countries should use the existing opportunities under the UN climate change process to agree at the next UN climate conference (COP 26) to dramatically increase their climate ambition and set targets for the next five years that meet growing needs.
4. At COP 26, within climate finance targets for the next five years, donors should commit to doubling the assistance provided to the most climate-vulnerable Least Developed Countries (LDCs) by 2025.
5. Multilateral and bilateral donors need to take a long-term and holistic approach to fragile and vulnerable countries to support them with adaptation as this will simultaneously help other development goals.
6. Financing mechanisms need to be reformed to strengthen the decision-making power of affected people, particularly marginalized groups.
7. Reporting should include improvements in how donors track ‘mainstreaming’ of climate finance and the quality of such interventions.