Unlocking UK climate adaptation finance: lessons from adaptation investment planning

This policy brief from the ATTENUATE project synthesises findings from a review of global knowledge on adaptation investment planning frameworks and enabling conditions to inform the development of a multi-level Adaptation Investment Framework (AIF) for the UK. The framework will provide a delivery and financing approach to help actors across all levels of government translate priorities in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) and National Adaptation Programme (NAP) into pipelines of bankable adaptation projects and promote changes to the enabling environment.

Main messages

• The UK faces a considerable gap between the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and the scale of finance accessible to support that adaptation. Adaptation investment planning has emerged as a key strategy to help close the gap.
• The UKRI-Defra-funded ATTENUATE project is developing a new AIF that will provide a toolkit for the Government, real economy actors and financial institutions to mobilise adaptation investment through planning across different levels of governance.
• The framework will draw on lessons from guidance and strategies for adaptation investment planning developed around the world.
• The authors identify 37 enabling conditions relevant to the UK context to integrate into an investment planning process, grouped under five themes: mainstreaming sustainable finance; multi-level governance and coordination; supportive policy and regulation; skills, competencies and capabilities; and decision-relevant data, evidence and future scenarios.
• An AIF responding to these enabling conditions and aligned with the UK’s domestic needs should:
  • Be practical for use at every level of government (UK, devolved administration, combined authority, local)
  • Address the barriers, enablers and motivations for investment
  • Facilitate investments that support both incremental and systemic change.
• The framework should maximise the private sector’s potential for funding and financing adaptation, based on possible returns and characteristics of goods (public/private). This should help identify where private capital can invest on largely commercial terms, where government intervention (funding, standards, risk-sharing, incentives) is needed to enable private participation, and where public sector delivery is preferable.

DOI: 10.21953/researchonline.lse.ac.uk.00137986