Deepali Gautam, Ekaterina Gratcheva, Fabio M Natalucci, and Ananthakrishnan Prasad
Mitigation and decarbonization efforts are falling short of the 1.5°C goal, making adaptation critical. Developing economies are affected the most, despite having contributed the least to the problem. Nearly 98 percent of adaptation finance comes from public actors, with highly fragmented flows from the private sector. As financing needs increase, bringing private sector finance becomes critical and requires reframing adaptation investments from being seen not just as a risk exposure but also as an investment opportunity. This requires addressing real and perceived investment barriers, public-private collaboration and risk sharing, as well as financial incentives and innovation to unlock scalable, inclusive solutions. Adaptation is more complex than mitigation, with challenges in defining, evaluating, pricing, and scaling investments. Progress on adaptation requires policy reforms, incentives, and partnerships between governments, businesses, and communities and public-private risk sharing.
Kenya is confronted with the need to chart a course that attends directly to the
recent public outcry. The widespread protests that started in June and resulted in tragic
loss of lives and injuries were triggered by the authorities’ efforts to correct a large tax
revenue shortfall in FY2023/24 through revenue raising proposals in the 2024 Finance
Bill, some of which were unpopular or seen as regressive. The protests forced the
President to withdraw the Bill, introduce significant spending cuts through a
Supplementary Budget in July, and reconstitute the Cabinet in August. Persistent
difficulties in mobilizing revenue coupled with spending rigidities have led to a further
accumulation of pending bills, and necessitated deep cuts in development spending,
with potential for knock-on effects on growth and debt sustainability. Against this
backdrop, preceded by large exogenous shocks (COVID-19, global developments
impacting import price and affordable access to market finance, and severe multi-season
droughts), the authorities face a complex and difficult balancing act: meeting critical
spending needs for priority areas (social programs, health, and education), servicing
large upcoming debt obligations, and boosting domestic revenues. Earlier in the year,
Kenya addressed the exceptional balance of payments (BoP) needs associated with
repayment of the June 2024 US$2 billion Eurobond, boosting market confidence that
helped strengthen the shilling and build reserves. Meanwhile, fiscal pressures continue,
including from uncertainty surrounding the constitutionality of the 2023 Finance Act on
which the Supreme Court’s decision is awaited.
The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference reinforced already existing pressure to transition away from fossil fuels, in particular for the most polluting source, coal. We use a comprehensive dataset on bank loans for coal projects to shed light on which type of banks continue to finance coal and how coal phase-out commitments affect coal financing. We find that coal financing is becoming increasingly concentrated, partly in banks with a very high coal exposure. We also find that many coal loans have maturities much shorter than the remaining lifetime of coal assets, thus exposing equity holders of coal assets to the risk of a more difficult loan rollover. An econometric analysis shows that countries with a strong commitment to coal phase-out, fixed in national law for example, receive less coal financing. Using an instrumental variable, we identify this effect as causal.