Unlocking private investments in adaptation

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DanChurchAid, the Confederation of Danish Industry and the Global Center on Adaptation are convening Danish partners for a roundtable dialogue to present the business case for adaptation investments and inspire the private sector in Denmark to invest in adaptation in the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Based on the findings of GCA’s STA21-22 reports and DanChurchAid’s 2022 report, the objectives of this roundtable dialogue are to:

• Discuss how international organizations and governments address risk to facilitate private investments.
• Unpack the needs, challenges and opportunities that underpin the shortfall in private investment in climate adaptation.
• Showcase and discuss viable solutions and opportunities for scaling up private adaptation financing.
• Inspire the private sector in Denmark to invest in adaptation globally, with a focus on most vulnerable countries.

Despite increasing costs associated with delayed action, climate adaptation faces a serious and urgent shortfall in funding, particularly in the most vulnerable countries. For example, new analysis from GCA in Africa in its STA22, suggests that current annual spending on adaptation across all of the continent is $11.4 billion. This amount falls far short of the actual adaptation needs, which require additional funding of at least $41.3 billion each year.

To incentivize a wide range of potential actors, it is necessary to build an enabling environment for adaptation investment and deploy innovative instruments to unlock finance at scale towards adaptation, such as blended finance. Given the scale of the challenge, successful adaptation and resilience efforts will need the meaningful engagement of the private sector.

Online participation is possible