Private finance for adaptation: do private realities meet public ambitions?

The paper finds a dissonance between the UNFCCC's diplomatic conceptualization of adaptation finance and private-sector realities. While private interventions complement public activities and are 'new and additional' to official development assistance, they fail to meet key criteria regarding predictability and up-scaling costs. The authors conclude that developed countries' role in mobilizing these resources is limited and suggest that only investments principally financing adaptation should be monitored, though this would reduce the total volume of finance contributing to the 100 billion USD target.

• Analysis of 101 case studies reveals that private sector adaptation interventions complement public efforts, but they do not meet the 10 'adaptation finance criteria' derived from UN climate negotiations, indicating a gap between diplomatic goals and private sector reality.
• Specific failures in meeting criteria include a lack of clarity regarding the 'predictability' of investments and a failure to disclose plans and costs associated with 'up-scaling', despite some commitments to do so.
• The authors argue that it is unrealistic for the UNFCCC to change its criteria or for the private sector to align with them; they propose monitoring only investments that principally finance adaptation, which would likely decrease the amount of private investment credited toward the 100 billion USD annual climate finance target.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2015). Private finance for adaptation: do private realities meet public ambitions? https://www.sei.org/publications/private-finance-for-adaptation-do-private-realities-meet-public-ambitions/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Private finance for adaptation: do private realities meet public ambitions? 2015. https://www.sei.org/publications/private-finance-for-adaptation-do-private-realities-meet-public-ambitions/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Private finance for adaptation: do private realities meet public ambitions? |date=9 November 2015 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/private-finance-for-adaptation-do-private-realities-meet-public-ambitions/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2015private, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Private finance for adaptation: do private realities meet public ambitions?}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2015}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/private-finance-for-adaptation-do-private-realities-meet-public-ambitions/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }