erina asked: I just finished reading a paper by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development called Business Solutions to Enable Energy Access for All (tumblr won't let me link to it). There's a short paragraph that mentions adaptation financing and how it could support access to energy objectives. Do you know anything about/ have any opinions on adaptation financing & how it could be used in conjunction with energy access? (sorry for the long question, love your blog!)

Hey erina!

Solid question. To be clear to my readers, adapting to climate change really has nothing to do with reducing carbon emissions (e.g., mitigation). Adaptation is (mostly) about dealing with disasters, like floods, drought, famine, crop failure, infestations, infrastructure, etc. True, there’s some overlap between mitigation and adaptation, but not much.

So, your question about energy might confuse some people. What you’re asking about is increasing access to places that will need more electricity because the climate is changing. Since some communities will be, say, hotter, they’ll need new pumps for clean water, newer A/Cs for hospitals, better roads for ex/importing materials and food, etc. These projects need money and political will.

The high-level sources for adaptation finance for dev projects is the Adaptation Fund, USAID, and the World Bank. Much of these things will, sorry to say, be boondoggles for corrupt politicians. They love to misdirect econ-dev funds towards “local employers,” for instance. 

By the way, I skimmed the WBCSD report. Good stuff! I especially like the highlight on page 10 that makes the case that hydro-electric dams will need to adapt to increased flows from climate impacts (floods/rains). Since there will be more turbidity, hydro-operators will need to update their turbines to withstand higher levels of abrasion. MY HEAD EXPLODED!

Not sure if that helped at all. Hit me up if you need narrower details.

Thanks,

Michael