US and Egypt forge $150m climate adaptation fund

Globally, more nations are making concerted efforts to champion resiliency

The $150m funding package between the US and Egypt was announced at a session on “Advancing Adaptation Action in Africa” co-hosted by Sameh Shoukry, COP27 President, and the US’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry.

It forms part of the US Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) that had seen the US agree to double its adaptation funding pledges to $100m, and the new Accelerating Adaptation in Africa initiative provides $150m in support to accelerate PREPARE’s work across the continent.

COP President Shoukry said: “The key challenge for African countries is to access funding for climate action. Recognizing that progress towards adapting to climate consequences and enhancing resilience is crucially needed, we launched a couple of days ago here at COP27 the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda. This agenda comprises a total of 30 global adaptation outcome targets by 2030 that are urgently needed to address the adaptation gap and increase the resilience of 4 billion people through accelerating transformation across five impact systems: food and agriculture, water and nature, coastal and oceans, human settlements, and infrastructure.”

The Adaptation in Africa initiative was announced in June this year by US president Joe Biden. Research suggests that for every $1 invested, benefits of $4-10 could be generated.

Some of the key projects that the funding will assist include a $13.6m Systematic Observations Financing Facility to help improve climate and water data collection in Africa and a $15m early-warning systems initiative that will cut the number of people who need emergency assistance in half by 2030 – and from 200 million to just 10 million by 2050.

More than $10m will be used to support the capacity building of Africa’s current and future decision makers and $25m will be used for the Africa Adaptation Initiative (AAI). In total, around $100m will be used to support food systems.

Back in the summer, the Egyptian Government’s ministry for international cooperation announced a new programme to raise and allocate finance for water, food and energy projects that will reduce emissions. Earlier in the week at COP27, it announced a new partnership with the US and support from international banks, energy and climate finance bodies to get the ‘NWFE’ programme up and running, targeting $15bn of investment this decade.

To start, $10bn will go to energy and the remaining $5bn will be spread across three projects relating to food security, irrigation and water stewardship. The energy projects should enable Egypt to replace some of its least efficient fossil fuel plants, the Government has stated.

Also announced at COP27 was increased investment for the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate).

The initiative is spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates and the US and aims to increase investment into smart and sustainable agricultural systems in Africa.

More than $8bn in funding has been announced, up from the $4bn pledged at COP26. Nations including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, US, United Arab Emirates, the UK Uruguay and Vietnam have delivered a combined funding pool of $7bn. An additional $1bn will be provided from 30 Innovation Sprints.