Climate financing for adaptation is becoming increasingly urgent, and countries need to ramp up contributions to help prevent future destruction, the chair of the United Nations-established Adaptation Fund told Devex.
“Adaptation needs to come in much quicker, and therefore financing is even more urgent than it was just a few years ago because of the speed of climate change,” said Mattias Broman, the chair of the fund’s board. “We know that [with] every dollar we are investing now, we’re saving a lot of money in the future because prevention is always better than trying to build something back that has already been destroyed.”
But the fund’s reliance on voluntary donations means predictable funding has been hard to come by. It signed its first multiyear agreement — with Sweden, Broman’s home country — in 2019. With the momentum around the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference, which kicks off Sunday in Glasgow, Broman is hoping more countries might follow suit.