Tag Archives: International Monetary Fund

Mongabay: Real-world return on climate adaption investments wildly underestimated, report finds

In 2023, Brazilian officials and representatives from several other cities around the nation met for a workshop in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro state as part of the “Nature-Based Solutions Accelerator in Cities” project. Participants discussed ways for improving adaptation and nature-based solutions projects in order to better access climate finance. Image courtesy of Diego Padilha-Yantra Imagens/WRI Brasil.

When it comes to global finance for climate adaptation and resilience, the billions made available to vulnerable countries continues to fall hundreds of billions short of the actual need as climate catastrophes mount annually. In this story for Mongabay, I report on a novel, detailed study by World Resources Institute that is critically important to policymakers and finance leaders who gather at annual UN climate summits.

WRI economist Carter Brandon‘s team evaluated 320 adaptation and resilience grants in 12 mostly tropical countries totaling $133 billion in finance between 2014 and 2024. They found that for every $1 invested there was a return of more than $10 in value in unaccounted for benefits. This came in areas such as permanent infrastructure, job creation, risk management, public health improvements, lives saved, biodiversity protection. These benefits accrue whether or not they are counted or even recognized.

Brandon argues that finance institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and other major eco-financiers should consider these ancillary benefits as they evaluate future grant requests. He emphasized that countries, too, should better understand the full impact of the most effective adaptation and resilience projects and sharpen their finance requests. “What we now can see is that this investment is not only good for resilience,” Brandon told me, “but it’s also a really strong investment in development and public health.”

The Guandu water treatment plant in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil. The facility supplies water to more than 9 million people in Rio de Janeiro. Under the Cities4Forests initiative, WRI conducted a study on the benefits of natural infrastructure for water in five metropolitan regions, including Rio de Janeiro. By restoring forests and protecting watersheds upstream, the Rio de Janeiro project also helps reduce pollution, lower water treatment costs and secure long-term water quality. Image courtesy of Marizilda Cruppe/WRI Brasil.

Mongabay: COP16/CBD — Global biodiversity financiers strategize at COP16 to end ‘perverse subsidies’

The 16th United Nations biodiversity summit, called COP16, is being held in Cali, Colombia, near the country’s mountainous Pacific coast. The motto for the meeting is also its goal: Paz con la Naturaleza — Peace with Nature. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.


Since 2014, I’ve covered seven of the last nice United Nations climate summits, the last one in Glasgow, Scotland, during the pandemic, in 2021. In 2024, I decided against traveling to Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29, and go south instead, to Cali, Columbia, to cover my first UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the 16th such biennial Conference of the Parties. I’m glad I did.

COP16 is a far smaller meeting than any of the climate COPs I’ve covered, with 23,000 attendees instead of the 50,000 in Glasgow and more than 100,000 in 2023 in Dubai. The venue outside of Cali felt spacious and easier to navigate. The pace was significantly less harried. The two media centers were conveniently located not far from the entrance, and the press conference room was nearby (the last several climate meetings seemed intent on locating journalists are far from their sources and press conference rooms as physically possible). Some drawbacks: fewer NGOs provided daily briefings of the day-before’s happenings and fewer contextual press conferences were held until the very end. This made it difficult for this newcomer to the CBD to get a handle on what was happening. But with some diligent (perhaps manic) sourcing, I moved up the learning curve and spotted stories I needed to pursue.

Here’s my first one, which I started reporting on before I left for Colombia: a daylong, side event that focused on a crucial element of the CBD agreement approved during COP15 (in Montreal in 2022) — a vow to identify the more than $1.7 trillion paid out in subsidies and tax breaks that actually harm and destroy forests, oceans and species ($650 billion to fossil fuel companies alone), and redirect that money to conservation initiatives. The morning session produced a clear and substantive panel discussion, with a keynote speech by a British member of parliament, Barry Gardiner. He has been pushing back for a decade against the UK subsides paid to Drax ($1 billion annually) to burn wood pellets largely from North Carolina. I’ve heard about him for years. It was a pleasure to finally hear him speak and talk with him afterwards. My first few days in Cali — the lush, friendly home of salsa dancing — proved a solid start to my week at COP16.

Barry Gardiner, a Labour Party member of the British Parliament since 1997, was the keynote speaker on Sunday, Oct. 27, at a daylong meeting to discuss concrete plans to phase out $1.7 trillion in global economic subsidies known to cause environmental damage around the world. The trick of course, will be getting it done. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.