From CFACT

By David Wojick

If I buy an air conditioner because summers are hot that is not adaptation to climate change. I am meeting an immediate need that has nothing to do with climate change. Even if climate change made it warmer from time to time my purchase is not based on that possibility.

Suppose I have a fundraiser to pay for my air conditioner, and I claim it is to adapt to climate change as a way to get donations. That would be fraud, a form of what is called greenwashing.

This is just what the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF) is doing. They solicit funds by claiming to finance adaptation when in fact they are funding responses to immediate needs. These needs would clearly still exist if climate change never happened.

Here are three examples, out of many so-called adaptation projects listed in the database of GCF projects.

For simplicity these occur at the beginning of the listing.

1. “ALBAdapt – Climate Services for a Resilient Albania

….develop a fully functional and well-resourced National Meteorological and Hydrological Service (NMHS) that complies with World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standards. The project also includes the implementation of a people-centered Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS) and the foundation for ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation (EbA) and disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR).”

$40 million

So basically weather forecasts and early warning of disasters. This is good stuff but as they say in the project description, Albania is already subject to bad weather and floods, etc. It meets immediate needs.

2. “Resilience to hurricanes in the building sector in Antigua and Barbuda

This project addresses the resilience of building construction in the country, in addition to climate information systems and post-disaster responses. It will climate proof critical public service and community buildings to improve resilience to, and recovery from, extreme climate events.”

$46 million

These folks are already battered by hurricanes and calling them “extreme climate events” does not change that, in fact it is a marketing hoax. Resilience to hurricanes is a great idea but it is an immediate need that does not arise from climate change.

3. “Multi-country Project Advancing Early Warnings for All (EW4All)

This project aims to strengthen the resilience of communities in seven countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Chad, Cambodia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, and Somalia) by improving the production, dissemination and effective use of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS).”

$115 million

Another early warning system which is a good idea but it is an immediate need that has nothing to do with climate change adaptation.

When you think about it climate change adaptation would be weird stuff. You would be building for a need that does not yet exist. For example irrigation or water supply systems where none is presently needed. Or flood defenses where floods have never occurred.

How do you prepare for getting a few more hurricanes, droughts or floods than you already get? Of for some to be bigger than they otherwise would be? Is anybody doing that, if so how?

It is possible that the concept of climate change adaptation makes no sense, but people are certainly raising and making a lot of money using it.

The Green Climate Fund says that 60% of their billions in project funding is directed toward adaptation. They are really just meeting immediate needs which makes this greenwashing on a grand scale.

If the countries donating to the GCF think they are contributing to climate change adaptation they should think again. It is just ordinary foreign aid which they would be better off

doing themselves.