Sierra Leone’s Climate and Environment Minister Jiwoh Abdulai is blunt about one of the biggest debates dominating the United Nations COP30 Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil: The push to rely on private capital to fund climate adaptation.
As governments and institutions look for ways to “unlock” private sector investment, he says the track record speaks for itself.
“The private sector does not work for adaptation. … If it worked, we wouldn’t be here,” he told Devex. “I would like someone to tell me where it has worked. Maybe at some point, the private sector will come in. But it hasn’t so far, and there’s a reason for that.”