Communities around the world face increasingly severe and frequent impacts from climate change. They are on the “frontlines” of droughts, flooding, desertification and sea level rise. International climate finance is supposed to help. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world’s wealthiest countries pledged US$50 billion annually to support climate adaptation among those “particularly vulnerable” to climate change.
Climate adaptation is the adjustments humans make to reduce exposure to climate risk. Eight years later, it is clear that this money is failing to reach vulnerable “frontline communities”, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Recently, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Sudan and Niger have been among the top ten most affected countries. The host country of the upcoming annual United Nations climate negotiations (COP28), the United Arab Emirates, has announced it is focused on “fixing climate finance”. I am a researcher who has studied international climate finance for seven years, both at the annual COPs and through research in Madagascar, Mauritius and Namibi