In 2023, the figure reached 26.4 million worldwide as a result of floods, storms, wildfires and other disasters, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Climate change is not solely responsible, but the frequency and intensity of extreme weather is increasing as global temperatures continue to rise. As a result we can expect that more and more people will face losing their homes and their livelihoods.

It is commonplace to see people boarding up their homes and literally battening down the hatches before a major hurricane is predicted to make landfall. For those facing extreme weather, this mentality is no longer confined to one-off events, but a regular mindset as the climate crisis continues to bite. Many communities around the world know that building resilience against intense storms, floods and heat waves is now essential to daily life.

“No country is immune to disaster displacement,” Alexandra Bilak, IDMC’s director, said in a recent press statement. “But we can see a difference in how displacement affects people in countries that prepare and plan for its impacts and those that don’t. Those that look at the data and make prevention, response and long-term development plans that consider displacement fare far better.”

This kind of planning is happening in countries on the front line of the climate crisis. Some small island nations, for example – many of them low-lying – are seeing their homes permanently washed into the Pacific Ocean.

Paradise lost

According to Fiji’s government, disaster events in the Pacific island state over the past 40 years have led to annual economic damages of around US$16 million, with 40,000 people impacted each year. This is due to increase to an average of US$85 million per year in losses, as a result of cyclones and earthquakes. These figures are high for a country with a population of under 1 million people.

Many of the people most impacted by climate disasters live in informal urban settlements. Their homes are extremely vulnerable to the regular cyclones that hit the island nation, especially as they are often located near riverbanks or around the coast.

The subtle art of scaling up climate adaptation

A recent Adaptation Fund project in Fiji was designed to build resilience against regular extreme weather events and “climate proof” housing for the foreseeable future. The project, implemented by UN-Habitat, looked at ways to protect thousands of homes when storm surges overwhelm local water and sanitation infrastructure. The settlements were located across four main urban areas on the island: Lautoka, Sigatoka, Nadi and Lami.

Low-cost, high-impact

Constructing cyclone-resilient buildings was an essential component of the work.

Moving new homes away from vulnerable hot spots, such as foreshores, floodplains and riverbanks, was a first step. As many settlements are self-built, training local people in new construction methods ensures future homes can be built with extreme weather in mind. An innovative element from the project was so-called ‘stilted safe rooms’ – low-cost and simple raised structures intended to provide refuge during periods of intense flooding.

Flood control is a key component of climate-proofing infrastructure. In Fiji, priorities included building upgraded site drainage to reduce runoff; upgrading water sources and storage; and improving access ways, to ensure people can respond when cyclones put pressure on local infrastructure.

School’s out

In Haiti, a very poor and conflict-torn country beset with repeated natural disasters, climate-proofing infrastructure is still at an early stage. The country’s education sector, for example, has been repeatedly hit by extreme weather, including in 2016 when Hurricane Matthew damaged a quarter of its schools. Rebuilding after such frequent turmoil now requires new ways of thinking.

With the help of around US$10 million of funding from the Adaptation Fund, UNESCO is currently supporting the restoration of 620 schools across the country. Their work has included raising awareness of disaster risk reduction, improving knowledge of safety levels, and retrofitting existing buildings.

As climate disasters grow, early warning systems become essential

Panaroty Ferdinand Prophete, UNESCO’s national coordinator, told Climate Home that “nearly 200 technicians, students and experts received training on new construction techniques, an early warning system and the management of temporary shelters.” This training included working directly with the Ministry of Education to develop new construction standards for schools.

Over 150,000 students have so far benefited from the project, a success Prophete attributes to “very good synergy” between the different stakeholders. “This makes it easy to put in place a community emergency plan as well as the execution of the national action plan for resilient school infrastructure,” he added.

Best defence

Experts agree that we need to change the way we live in response to climate disasters. Moving settlements away from major water sources is, if possible, a simple solution. More projects supported by the Adaptation Fund – from Indonesia to Antigua and Barbuda – are focusing on blocking, redirecting or draining excess water as it comes in, to keep homes intact and habitable. These responses will remain some of our best defence against more unpredictable and extreme weather.

“A key sector for the Adaptation Fund is averting and reducing loss and damage through disaster risk reduction and early warning systems, which account for about 16% of the Fund’s current portfolio. Many additional multi-sector projects also include elements that are building resilience to disasters,” said Mikko Ollikainen, head of the Adaptation Fund.

“From climate-proofing homes and community centres to making informal settlements resilient to floods, it’s a vital aspect of the Fund’s work. Many of the projects are replicable and scalable so we hope they will also serve as models to create a larger positive impact on additional vulnerable communities beyond those served by the projects,” he added.

There is only so much adaptation can achieve if the flood waters get too high, or if cyclones increase in intensity and destructive force. But there are many cost-effective solutions to offer people a better chance of keeping their homes intact when extreme weather hits.

These investments can’t come soon enough for communities living in climate hot-spots and can serve to tackle long standing poverty issues at the same time. Fast-tracking these solutions will become ever more important if we want to reduce the millions of newly displaced people each year.

Sponsored by the Adaptation Fund. See our supporters page for what this means.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

The post Climate disasters challenge right to safe and adequate housing appeared first on Climate Home News.

Achieving this aim would mean tens of billions more dollars flowing into adaptation projects. This huge – but achievable – feat would be immensely beneficial for communities around the world suffering from regular extreme weather events.

Alongside his call for greater adaptation finance, Guterres outlined five priorities for the sector, one of which was making it easier to access funding, especially for the vulnerable.

If billions are going to be spent on helping countries adapt to climate change, we need to make sure the money is reaching the people who need it the most. This is where the concept of locally led adaptation (LLA) comes in. The term refers to the central importance of providing frontline communities with the power and resources to respond to the climate crisis.

The Adaptation Fund was among the first group of international organisations to endorse a set of principles on locally led adaptation during COP25 in 2019. These principles cover everything from devolving decision-making to addressing inequalities, from providing predictable funding to ensuring the whole process is open and transparent. The principles have since been endorsed by over 100 organisations, including government ministries, global charities and development agencies.

This new model sets the scene for how current and future climate adaptation should be implemented. The focus is on an inclusive approach which puts communities most affected by climate change at the heart of how decisions are made.

Putting words into practice

The Adaptation Fund has been applying the principles of locally led adaptation for over a decade. The fund’s direct access scheme allows national organisations based in the countries they serve to manage all elements of a project, from design to monitoring.

The fund pioneered its first enhanced direct access (EDA) projects in 2014, taking direct access a step further in empowering national institutions to identify and fund local adaptation projects. This led the fund to establish an EDA funding window in 2021, and in April 2024, it went one step further by creating dedicated finance streams to support locally led adaptation.

The fund believes this new approach makes it “the first multilateral climate fund that has fully operationalised the global LLA principles,” it said in a press statement.

“The Adaptation Fund has a rich history of innovating and evolving to respond to countries’ urgent adaptation needs. Over several years, the fund has continued to offer more opportunities to vulnerable countries through diverse funding windows beyond its regular projects,” Mikko Ollikainen, who heads up the organisation, told Climate Home.

“Creating these dedicated funding windows to support locally led adaptation will open even more opportunities for vulnerable countries to enhance capacity building by offering local governments, NGOs, community organisations, indigenous groups, young entrepreneurs and a broad range of local actors the opportunity to develop and implement sustainable adaptation actions directly,” he added.

Tailored solutions

One of the pioneering locally led adaptation projects the fund supported took place in South Africa from 2015 to 2020. On opposite ends of the country, two districts – Namakwa in the Northern Cape and Mopani in Limpopo – are subject to the same extreme weather: hotter temperatures with more intense dry and wet spells. These more uncertain, dangerous conditions put ever greater pressure on fragile local communities.

The pilot project was implemented by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI). It was intended to strengthen local institutions to adapt to these new climate realities, and provided funding to 12 ‘small grant recipients’ – groups based in the region and with an intimate understanding of how the communities work.

Investments were made after vulnerability studies were conducted and tailored solutions created to meet local needs. The ambition of these groups was simple – to ensure resources went to people most vulnerable to climate change. A raft of innovative solutions were then implemented, from rainwater harvesting and solar pumps, to cooling sheds and bio-gas digesters.

‘Considerable impact’

“The reach and positive impact on people’s livelihoods and adaptive capacity through assets, learning and networks was considerable,” the project’s evaluation report concludes, adding that the focus on careful, appropriate investment “has significantly improved the lives of those directly, and indirectly connected with the projects.”

Mandy Barnett, SANBI’s chief director for adaptation policy, told Climate Home that one lesson from the project was a need to develop trust and effective relationships with people on the ground.

“We learned what we should do and what we shouldn’t do in terms of getting climate finance to the right people,” she added, noting that communicating expectations, from the funder downward, was key.

“A wider challenge is the need to translate climate science into local concerns. We want to empower people to make informed decisions, and to do this requires you to invest time and resources into capacity building,” she added.

New opportunities

The South African project helped pave the way for the many LLA schemes the fund is now supporting around the world. Fast forward to 2024 and a range of new proposals have just been approved which puts decision-making powers into the hands of local institutions.

They include a Peruvian project to support water, agriculture and food security; a Rwandan project to build climate resilience in rural areas; and in Belize, a plan to restore ecosystems and livelihoods battered by climate-related disasters. What these projects have in common is not only a plan to fight climate change, but one where the tools and resources are under local control.

“These new LLA windows take a significant step forward in providing an opportunity to directly lead and develop adaptation projects on the ground and accelerate effective, scalable actions worldwide in the process,” said Ollikainen.

The way forward

On World Environment Day this June, the UN Secretary-General took the opportunity to speak up about adaptation finance again. He highlighted how the last 12 months have been the hottest on record. “For every dollar needed to adapt to extreme weather, only about 5 cents is available,” he said.

The most recent data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that, in 2022, $115.9 billion was raised for climate finance, the first time this target has been achieved. Adaptation finance made up $32.4 billion of the total, a way off the 50% goal endorsed by the UN head, but still three times higher than what it was in 2016.

Where this money is spent will determine how vulnerable regions can survive the impacts of climate change in the coming years. But as more locally led adaptation projects are rolled out, affected communities will finally have a direct say in how that happens.

Sponsored by the Adaptation Fund. See our supporters page for what this means.

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

The post Finance flowing for locally led climate adaptation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Following the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, nations worked quickly to enter it into force less than a year later.

There has been a lot to celebrate in the climate action community, even as public concern heightened when the US reversed course on climate action. Their decision left a void in global climate action, but 375 US mayors immediately stepped up, joining thousands of businesses, investors, states, counties and university in the “We Are Still In” pledge to uphold the Paris Agreement.

The dedication of US mayors and local and regional leaders from all over the world is sending a clear signal that climate action is moving forward. Now, as nations gather at Cop23 in Bonn, mayors, governors and other subnational leaders are encouraging them to swiftly define the rulebook for how implementation of the Paris Agreement will move forward, while laying the groundwork for collaboration across all levels of government and across sectors and stakeholder groups.

Jerry Brown: ‘California will sue Trump over climate’

Local and regional governments are fully behind and are a demonstrably vital part of the grand coalition between government, civil society, businesses and all other climate stakeholders, which, with the encouragement of the prime minister Frank Bainimarama of Fiji, the incoming Cop president, is quickly taking shape as Cop approaches. During the full two weeks of Cop, and at the Climate Summit of Local and Regional Leaders on the 12th of November, city and regional leaders will show their actions, their commitments and the full momentum of subnational action.

What local and regional governments bring to the table has an important role in advancing global climate action. There is a 15-22 gigatonne gap between the current climate commitments nations made in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the respective emissions reductions needed to stay on track to limit the global temperature rise to 2C or 1.5C. Subnational action can help bridge this gap and support national governments as they raise their climate commitments in the coming years.

Now is the time for this to happen and for a new climate governance to take hold, where nations work closely alongside their subnational counterparts. In 2018, nations will prepare to take stock of global progress at the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue, marking the beginning of a process in which they submit new and higher targets every five years. As part of this process, it is vital that nations shape climate policy to support and raise subnational climate action, while integrating subnational commitments into national target-setting.

At Cop23, local and regional leaders aim to make this message quite clear. They are partners in climate action and are coming together to affirm their own commitments. The Climate Summit of Local and Regional Leaders will bring together over 1,000 delegates and over 320 political leaders. It is a strong signal to nations and the world that the grand coalition to advance climate action globally is taking shape and that it is durable.

Local and regional governments will show their global leadership at this Cop, through coalitions like the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy and the Under2 Coalition. They will also send a reminder that the global climate architecture is critical: They need supporting frameworks and financing mechanisms to be customised to match their priorities. They need better access to national funding, private finance and markets.

Now is the time to keep attention focused on the climate talks and to tune into the work of all actors: nations, local and regional leaders, businesses and civil society partners. The world is looking for a signal that nations are moving climate action forward and that the momentum built in Paris is unstoppable. Local and regional governments will be at Cop23, ready to send that signal.

Gino Van Begin is secretary general of Iclei – Local Governments for Sustainability. Climate Home News is a partner at Iclei’s Climate Summit of Local and Regional Leaders, which will take place in Bonn on the 12th of November.

The post It’s time for new climate governance – from below appeared first on Climate Home News.

At the same time, the global population is growing – to almost 10 billion by 2050, according to United Nations estimates. More people need more resources, especially in cities where two-thirds of us will live. The combination of these mega-trends poses a stark challenge to humanity. To meet rising demand we will need to foster new economic models of low carbon growth.

Energy efficiency is the low hanging fruit: an easy win among the raft of measures needed to tackle climate change. Today, energy efficiency improves by about 1.5 per cent every year. Translated into an equivalent reduction in coal-fired power stations, simply doubling the annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency to 3 per cent per year would set us on a sustainable path.

Philips Lighting CEO Eric Rondolat has called this “The 3% Syndrome”. In terms of reducing carbon emissions, greater energy efficiency could deliver fully two-thirds of what needs to be done to meet the bold commitments agreed at COP 21 in Paris. This incremental gain in energy efficiency improvement would unlock huge benefits – for the planet, its people, business and society.

Connected LED

To meet the needs of a growing population, we need to consume resources more efficiently. To create successful cities, we need clean energy and smart infrastructure. Fortunately, our response to these challenges is helped by a fourth mega-trend: Digitalization. The transformative powers of connected technologies offer a myriad of ways to make our world cleaner and smarter.

Lighting is a significant part of the answer. By 2030 for example, the global tally of light points will have increased by 35% to 60 billion. Simply adopting LED in place of incandescent lighting would reduce energy consumption by a massive 53%. Intelligent lighting for smart buildings and smart  cities can further boost those savings by up to 80%. So connected LED lighting is a form of energy efficiency that pays for itself in cost savings.

Bluntly stated, we can no longer afford the status quo. Faster renovation of existing infrastructure is long and urgently overdue. In September 2016, at Climate Week, New York City, Philips Lighting issued a joint call to action with The Climate Group and World Green Building Council. To boost energy efficiency in buildings we urged business and governments alike to adopt new targets for the private and public sector:

• All new buildings to be LED or equivalent energy-efficient lighting by 2020
• All street lighting to be LED or equivalent by 2025
• All corporate buildings to be LED or equivalent by 2030

Walking the talk

Shared conviction is a necessary condition for change. By walking the talk – in our own business, and through our offer to customers – we believe it is possible to build consensus on how to achieve low carbon growth. So what exactly have we promised? And with hindsight, what have we delivered to date?

Ten years ago, Philips called for a global ban on incandescent lamps – the product on which today’s global technology company was founded. In December 2006, these bulbs accounted for two-thirds of our sales volume in a global market that was stable at 12bn units per year. Today, the logic of switching from incandescent to energy-efficient LED is widely accepted. By end-2016, the global incandescent lamp market is forecast to at just 4bn units, a two-thirds (and ongoing) decline in just a decade.

In 2012 we made our first call for the renovation of street lighting at the Rio+20 summit, on a theme of sustainable development. A call renewed by our partners, at Climate Week NYC, this year. In 2016, we answered a Global Lighting Challenge from the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial in San Francisco, with a pledge to sell 2 billion LED light points by 2020.

To set these statements in context, our record should not be seen in isolation. In lighting, the transition to connected products, systems and services brings new opportunities to address an urgent global imperative. Digitalization of light means new ways to live, work and relax; to grow crops, heal the sick, power industry and build cities. My point is that we have risen to tough challenges before, and we can do so again.

Technology evolves, but the innovation we need is already with us. By 2020, 80 per cent of Philips Lighting revenues will come from sustainable products, systems and services; our global operations will be carbon neutral, and 100 per cent of our energy will be from sustainable sources. These and other commitments lie at the heart of our Brighter Lives, Better Planet sustainability strategy.

For the private sector at large, it is important to share the lessons of experience. In the connected world, bringing innovation to scale is really a matter of shared purpose and creative partnerships. For example, our partnership with Cisco Systems, to deliver Power Over Ethernet, has made possible office lighting powered through data cables. For smart cities, our go-to-market alliance with Vodafone has transformed humble street poles into a new form of digital real estate, loaded with sensors and multi- tasking connectivity.

Light as a service, around the clock

Seizing opportunity

Globally, lighting accounts for about 15 per cent of all electricity consumption, which we project to decline to 8% in 2030. Harnessing the potential of smart buildings – homes, industry and offices – is also smart public policy. Doubling the rate of energy efficient gains would create a hydra-headed stimulus for economic and social development. Benefits include creating six million new jobs and cutting annual energy costs by Euro 2,300 billion by 2030.

At COP22, world leaders are tasked with finding concrete next steps. Our best hope is for a mix of carrot-and-stick measures with particular emphasis on policy and financing. Next to bold targets on energy efficiency, equivalent at least to an annual improvement of 3 per cent, we urgently need more ambition to drive renovation in buildings.

As it stands the renovation rate for buildings currently stands at about 1.2%, far short of what is required. Accelerated renovation, lifting the rate to around 3% per year, will be a key factor for success. Obviously this requires enabling policies in building codes and performance-based procurement, as well as fiscal measures.

Research by Architecture 2030, a campaigning consultancy, shows that by regulating for renovation of commercial buildings at the point of every change in ownership, we could double current rates of renovation to 3% per year. Let’s explore this avenue and make it happen. I see only benefits for owners and real estate (more valuable future-proof buildings) and for occupants (more comfortable places to live and work), and a shift from operational (energy) expenses to slight rent increases that is cost-neutral overall.

On financing we essentially need to leverage the lower cost over lifetime of the building to take away the renovation budget hurdle. It is amazing to hear from cities and companies that they have projects but no money, and from banks that they have money but no projects. In other words, if we want to finance change, we need to change finance.

Here we are greatly helped by the fact that LED lighting is getting smarter and connected, as it allows us to move to new business models. Instead of invoicing boxes with lamps, we can now lease lighting as a service in larger projects. I believe LED lighting is just one part of the broad transition to more circular, more economical business models.

In this sense, energy efficiency is not just our business; it is everybody’s business. A transition to LED would save some Euro 272 billion in energy costs, equivalent to a reduction of 1,400 megatons in carbon emissions or shutting down 1,250 power plants. At household level, energy bills would fall by one-third. This is possible now. A new world order of low carbon growth. An opportunity – for people and planet – that we cannot afford to miss.

Harry Verhaar is head of global public and government affairs at Philips Lighting, which supports Climate Home’s work

The post Where ambition meets reality: renovate buildings to save the climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

Now the Global Environment Facility has reached this landmark moment. Set up in 1991 as a pilot programme in the run-up to the Earth Summit the following year, it has developed from being the financial mechanism for implementing international conventions agreed in Rio to the foremost champion of the global commons on which civilization depends. But, as with a person reaching his or her quarter century, its greatest challenges – and opportunities to make a difference – lie ahead.

Over those 25 years its original $1 billion programme has led to the investment of more than $15 billion, and the leverage of over $80 billion in additional resources, for more than 4,000 projects in 167 countries. Its original three partners – the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme – have grown to a network of 18 first-class implementing and executing agencies. But the task ahead is greater than ever, and requires that the GEF continues to innovate itself.

For the global commons – on which the world’s societies and economies depend – are threatened more than ever before. Species are becoming extinct 10 to over 100 times faster than at historic rates, a great dying comparable to the mass extinctions in the geological record. Thirty per cent of global forest cover has been cleared, with another 20% degraded. One quarter of the world’s land area – on which 1.5 billion people depend – is being degraded, while 85% of global fish stocks are now fully exploited or have been depleted.

Climate change is no longer a future threat, but a present reality – especially for many of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth – the result of higher levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than at any time in at least the last 800,000 years.

So overwhelming are these impacts of human activities that the very biophysical processes that determine the stability and resilience of Earth are being pushed to the limit. Several, planetary boundaries within which human society has become established and thrives, have already been transgressed as the global commons that we have so long taken for granted come under irresistible pressure.

Indeed, scientists are concluding that the world has moved out of the almost miraculously benign conditions of the past 11,000 years – the only ones known to be able to support civilization, let alone a human population of 7 billion and rising – that we call the Holocene. The Anthropocene that is succeeding it is a new terra incognita, a ‘no-anologue’ state beyond all human experience. And yet the negative drivers that have brought about this momentous transition are growing in intensity. The world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, while consumption is increasing even faster: by 2030 the global middle-class is likely to have expanded to 5 billion people. And the proportion of humanity living in towns and cities, which topped 50% in 2009, is due to reach 75% by 2050.

On this trajectory, the threat not just to the environment but to global aspirations for economic growth, prosperity, jobs and security – risks to escalate out of control. Business as usual will guarantee disaster. Incremental change will not suffice to avoid it: the challenge is just too great for that. The only solution is transformational, systems change. There is simply no other option.

Fortunately the world last year took the first steps to begin to turn this growing tragedy of the commons into an opportunity. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals, agreed by nearly 200 countries at the UN General Assembly, clearly recognize that the health of the global commons is fundamental to development and growth, aiming to end poverty and ensure prosperity while respecting planetary boundaries. The Paris climate agreement, concluded by the same governments in December does the same, while pledging to achieve zero net emissions of greenhouses gases in the second half of the century. But, important as this is, it is only a start. Much more is needed, and it must happen fast: we are at a tipping point, for good or ill, for the world’s environment and prosperity.

I believe that the GEF is particularly well placed to help catalyze the required transformation. It can, and must, play an ever stronger role as a champion of the global commons, its core mission.

The international conventions which it has long supported – on climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, persistent organic pollutants and mercury – cover most global environmental issues that impact the health of the Earth system. It also has a role in protecting the ozone layer, improving the management of transboundary freshwater resources and large marine ecosystems.

Over its quarter of a century, the GEF has accumulated a vast body of experience and knowledge.

Above all, it has a record of achieving good results on the ground. It has supported, for example, 790 projects for mitigating climate change – contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2.7 billion tonnes – together with adaption measures to reduce the vulnerability of more than 15 million people in 130 countries.

The GEF works through a range of influencing models, each chosen to match the barriers –  such as weak or inadequate policy frameworks, lack of awareness, limited access to finance, technological gaps, or failures in coordination – that must be overcome if the intended benefits are to be achieved. Choosing the right models – or a combination of them – increases the catalytic effects of the interventions that the GEF makes.

But the uncomfortable truth is that we, like the rest of the international community, are failing to reverse the sharp downward trend in the global environment. We have won battles, but the war is still being lost.

So the GEF, too, needs to change and – with the full support of its Council – it is doing so. Two years ago we published GEF 2020, the organization’s first-ever long term strategy, which we are now implementing. We are switching the focus of our operations to address the underlying negative drivers of environmental degradation – rather than merely its effects – and to supporting innovative and scalable activities that cost-effectively deliver the highest impacts.

Naoko Ishii, chief executive officer and chairperson of the Global Environment Facility (GEF)

The post Our global commons: safeguarding the planet appeared first on Climate Home News.