It’s a real pleasure to join you for the Climate Resilience Finance Summit, because to mobilise finance for climate resilience at scale, we’re all going to have to work together. This is not something governments can do alone.
At its core, it’s about turning the ambition that we all have into action. We’ve got stay the course to limit temperature rise. But we must also confront, urgently, the growing impacts of climate and nature loss that are already being felt across the world.
The past decade has been the hottest on record. Days like today reveal that climate change is already here, is already having an impact on our ability to lead our daily lives, on our health. Floods, heatwaves, droughts, wildfires are becoming more frequent and more severe. And the latest El Niño forecasts anticipate tough months ahead.
While every country is affected, including the UK, we know that it’s developing countries that are always hit the hardest – they’re the most vulnerable communities and they are on the frontline.
The reality of this underlines why we all need to invest in resilience. Yet global investment is less than a tenth of what is needed. The gap isn’t just a development challenge – it’s a risk to global growth, to global security and to stability.
It’s also a major economic opportunity. Investing in resilience supports growth, productivity, and long-term stability.
Evidence shows that every dollar invested in resilient agriculture, in water, infrastructure and health can deliver more than ten in return. So, this is the right thing to do – and it is firmly in all our interests.
International public finance has a critical role to play – particularly to support the most vulnerable and to help unlock private investment at scale.
It’s great that we’ll have Minister Caroit here later this morning, because France has been leading important work on this in the G7 Presidency. I spent last week with Minister Caroit in Lebanon, and I know just how committed that she, and the Government in France, is to this effort.
We look ahead now to our own G20 Presidency next year, and we’ll also be working with His Excellency Minister Şimşek and the Turkish COP31 Presidency, and Dr Aklilu, COP32 CEO, to accelerate action through the COP process as well.
Earlier this week, we published our strategy for the next phase of UK International Climate Finance. We’re using the full range of UK levers – both ODA and non-ODA – to tackle climate change and nature loss, strengthen food and water security, reduce poverty, and vitally, build resilience.
But public finance alone is never going to be enough – we know this. So we’ve got to embed resilience across our economies. With governments, financial institutions, investors and businesses all playing their part together.
For governments, putting in place the right policy frameworks and incentives is what we need to do. For investors and businesses, it’s about recognising the opportunities, which, from finance, insurance, agri-tech and more, are significant.
But to unlock them, we’ve got to change how resilience is valued and how resilience is priced. It’s the question that we explored repeatedly at the Global Partnerships Conference here in London just a few weeks ago. And we’re going to continue that conversation today, with a clear focus on action.
That means ensuring that investment decisions reflect climate risks. That financial markets recognise progress on resilience when assessing and pricing those risks. And it means being ready for shocks when they do come.
A key part of that is scaling pre-arranged finance. Today, only 2% of crisis finance is pre-arranged, even though 35% of crises are predictable. So we’ve got to change that.
The $662 million payout to Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa, it showed that pre-arranged finance can work and it can get there at speed, and it does help with the longer-term recovery. But it wasn’t enough, and we can do much, much more.
That’s why the UK is working with the multilateral development banks and the insurance industry to really scale up these approaches.
Today I am pleased to announce a new £3 million contribution from the UK to the Natural Disaster Fund Technical Assistance Facility.
We’re doing this, because this will help develop insurance solutions in climate-vulnerable countries – which will drive investment and resilient growth where it’s really needed the most.
To be ready for climate shocks, we also need to follow forecasts, pre-position finance, and be ready with risk insurance. Because acting early is much, much better and cheaper than responding after disaster strikes.
So, this week we are also announcing a new UK government partnership with the Met Office – to help countries across Africa, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific access and use cutting-edge forecasting and UK expertise. And a new £39 million research programme, ‘SCALE’, which focuses on practical solutions to build resilience.
Taken together, better forecasting and better finance can protect lives, strengthen livelihoods, and support a more resilient future for us all.
But that brings me to this room. Because it’s all of you who are going to make the biggest difference here. Whether that’s governments providing convening and some direction. Businesses driving change in the real economy. Or investors unlocking that finance that we know is there and it’s so desperately needed to get to the right places.
So, the invitation from me this morning, is for you to reflect on 3 questions
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What is stopping finance flowing at scale?
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What do you need from us as governments – both here and in the countries where you invest? What do you need from us?
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And what do you need from the international community, to make resilience the smart investment choice?
Today, and this whole week really but today especially, is a chance to answer those questions – and move, as we discussed earlier before getting into this room – from ambition to action.
Thank you.