Scaling up climate finance and action in fragile and conflict settings is challenging – but it is possible, as this new brief by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and ODI Global demonstrates.

The need for scaled-up climate action in fragile and conflict settings is by now a well-recognised part of the global climate agenda. Yet uncertainty about working in difficult environments, and persistent knowledge gaps, hamper the development of effective climate adaptation plans.

This brief aims to show that tailored interventions are feasible even in constrained environments. It outlines some of the characteristics that critically influence the response in different situations of fragility and conflict, highlights constraints to this response, and provides examples of success from Burundi, Ethiopia, Niger, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere. The brief closes with a series of outstanding questions and recommendations for those actors who are instrumental to a scaled-up climate action in these settings.

Published two years after Embracing Discomfort first called for action at COP27 to close the conflict blind spot in climate finance, this brief provides a solutions-focused guide for climate and development actors, humanitarian organisations and researchers to explore avenues to scale up climate action in countries affected by conflict and fragility. It was developed by ICRC and ODI Global on behalf of the Coalition for Climate Action in Conflict and Fragile Settings. The Coalition brings together climate and development actors, humanitarian organisations and researchers to explore avenues to scale up climate action in countries affected by conflict and fragility. It is co-convened by the ICRC, ODI and the World Bank.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute