Climate Change & Climate Finance

About the Unit

Climate change is the significant variation of average weather conditions becoming, for example, warmer, wetter or drier – over several decades or longer. It is the longer – term trend that differentiates climate change from natural weather variability.

Climate change vulnerability is the degree to which a system is unable to cope with the negative effects of climate change. It can apply to people, ecosystem and other systems. Factors that contribute to climate change vulnerability include:

Climate stresses: These include increased temperatures, changes in precipitation, and more frequent and intense extreme events
Poverty: Areas with poverty are more vulnerable to climate change
Poor governance: Areas with poor governance are more vulnerable to climate change
Conflict: Areas with conflict are more vulnerable to climate change
Livelihoods: Some livelihoods are more vulnerable to climate change than others, such as smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and fishing communities

Climate finance is a term for funding that helps address climate change. It refers to local, national or transnational financing – drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing – that seeks to support mitigation, resilience and adaptation actions that will address climate change. However, this terms is sometimes conflated with the related and overlapping concepts of green finance, sustainable finance and low – carbon finance.

Climate finance is used for; Mitigation (Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions); Adaptation: Helping communities adapt to the effects of climate change; and Resilience (Building communities’ ability to withstand the effects of climate change).

Climate finance comes from various sources including;

Public sources: National governments, domestic budgets, and sovereign bonds
Private sources: Businesses and grassroots fundraising campaigns
International sources: International organizations, multilateral and bilateral finance, and institutional investors

Climate finance is used for various purposes, including;

Carbon trading: Buying and selling carbon credits, which represent a tonne of carbon dioxide or an equivalent amount of another GHG.
Carbon taxes: Applying taxes to products and services that have a large carbon footprint.
Investment in renewable energy: Using tax proceeds to invest in renewable energy and other forms of climate action.

Examples of climate finance include the International Rescue Committee (IRC) uses climate finance to help farmers adapt to climate change and the Green Climate Fund is a fund that helps with climate action

SFI research on climate change and climate finance focuses on improved knowledge of the impacts of climate change on human health; environment and the pillars of climate finance strategies, particularly in sub – Saharan Africa, including issues surrounding private sector mobilization, international institutions and partnership , financial instruments and innovation finance.

Climate change research will also focuses on the scientific information and tools that community can deploy to effectively, equitably and sustainably tackle the climate crisis. SFI research will also focus on air quality, community resilience, ecosystems, water quality and climate change adaptation and resilience.

Climate finance research will essentially focus on the financial resources and instruments used to address climate change. It involves research in areas such as economics, energy, environmental sciences and finances.

Our Research Areas include:

Climate change research topics include:

Health impacts of climate change.
Climate change effect on agriculture.
Adaptation strategies to climate change.
Climate change and economic impacts.
Research on the climate crisis.
Climate change and human health.
Renewable energy solutions to climate change.
Global climate change and environmental conservation

Climate finance research topics include: