Resilience Monetization and Credits Initiative: A Background Paper

Addressing climate change requires urgent and innovative action aimed at both mitigating its effects and addressing its most severe impacts. However, current investment levels are insufficient to match the escalating climate risks and damages. Despite the annual target of $100 billion established at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference/Conference of Parties (COP15), climate finance directed to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) contin¬ues to lag behind stated goals. Adaptation efforts are especially underfunded, with investment falling short by a significant margin, estimated at 5 to 10 times the actual need. This document has been developed as part of an endeavor to propose an innovative solution—the Resilience Monetization and Credit Initiative (RMCI)— aimed at bridging the gap in resources made available to those most urgently in need of climate adaptation finance. Under this initiative, resilience credits are introduced as a novel asset class designed to align public and private capital to deliver improved resilience to the communities most vulnerable to climate impacts, while also ensuring equitable benefit sharing.