Adaptation finance
Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Adaptation finance is money spent helping people and economies cope with climate change that is already happening or cannot be avoided. It pays for resilience, which is the ability to withstand shocks and recover from them. Typical uses are flood defences, drought-tolerant crops and stronger infrastructure. Poor countries suffer most from climate impacts but have the least money for adaptation, so this finance is central to climate justice.
Example
A coastal district in India builds embankments and cyclone shelters, and farmers switch to drought-tolerant seeds. These are adaptation spending. At COP26 in Glasgow (2021), developed countries pledged to double adaptation finance by 2025 from 2019 levels.
Don't confuse with
- Mitigation finance: funds cuts in emissions, such as solar plants. Adaptation finance funds coping with climate impacts.
- Loss and damage: covers harm that adaptation cannot prevent, such as a submerged island or a lost harvest. A fund for it was agreed at COP27 (2022).
Related concepts
- Common but differentiated responsibilities
- Nationally determined contributions
- Carbon intensity
- Net zero
- Carbon neutrality
- Carbon negative
- Climate finance
- New collective quantified goal
- Loss and damage