Climate Change Adaptation
The low- and middle-income countries where PFAN works will be the most severely impacted by climate change. Currently, the finance gap for adaptation projects is even more severe than for mitigation type projects (mostly renewable energy and energy efficiency), and supporting them has been recognised as a significant area for PFAN services — preparing projects to access sources of finance. PFAN’s work in the adaptation sector has highlighted that the understanding of what constitutes an adaptation project is not yet broadly appreciated.
The low- and middle-income countries where PFAN’s work is focused are those that will be the most severely impacted by climate change. These are also the countries which have the lowest capacity to adapt to climate variations. We have been engaged with adaptation projects since 2014, and we consider them to be projects which help reduce the vulnerability of populations, infrastructures, ecosystems, and human or natural systems to the current and future impacts of climate change and climate-related risks and which help increase or maintain adaptive capacity and resilience in the countries of project implementation.
We are actively seeking to support projects that respond to current or projected impacts of climate change. In particular we look for adaptation projects in agriculture, agro-processing, crop storage and market linkages, water availability and wastewater management, financial services that support livelihoods, urban challenges of climate change including low-lying urban centres and climate proofing infrastructure. However, we are open to support projects in any sector that can be considered adaptation projects.
In many ways, adaptation offers a more immediate response to the direct impacts of climate change, and supporting these projects is expected to become a more significant area of PFAN engagement. Most of the adaptation projects that we have worked with have many of the criteria that impact investors look for when they consider projects for support, and the greening of investment portfolios will open up further opportunities for PFAN to support many more adaptation projects.
Photos: EarthSpark International