Bahamas Raises Alarm on Lack of Cash to Survive Fast-Warming World

There are major climate finance fights ahead at this year’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.

The United Nations’ meeting kicking off next week brings with it a clear goal: Figuring out how to scale up finance to help developing countries embark on the green transition into trillions of dollars. Yet beneath the headline figure — known as the New Collective Quantified Goal — a number of other fault lines are emerging.

Take the Bahamas. Unlike large developing nations, the island country situated in the Caribbean makes up a tiny fraction of 1% of global emissions and doesn’t need billions of dollars to transition. It needs money to help fend off the impacts of increasingly extreme weather — from hurricanes to droughts.

Of the $155 million it’s received in climate finance, just $10 million has been targeted towards adaptation, according to Rochelle Newbold, the prime minister’s special adviser on climate change. That compares to the more than $3 billion of damages caused by Hurricane Dorian five years ago — an event the Bahamas is still recovering from. The country of about half a million people, which relies heavily on the cruise industry for its economy, only just recently restored functionality to a series of Dorian-damaged lighthouses across its Abaco islands.

“For small island states, like the Bahamas, adaptation is where it’s at,” Newbold said in an interview. “We do not have the bandwidth to deal with the adaptation needs we’re facing in light of the fact that a hurricane event that happened five years ago is still something we’re trying to clear the books on.”

From the Bahamas point of view, the world must soon reckon with the fact it’s sailing past the temperature goal of 1.5C outlined by the Paris Agreement. The global average temperature will surpass that target for the first time this year, a report from the European Union Copernicus satellite program found Thursday.

The UN also warned last month the planet is on track to warm more than 3C above pre-industrial levels before the end of the century. This is well beyond the level at which critical climate tipping points may be breached and means adaptation is becoming a matter of survival. Yet the share of climate finance flowing from rich countries to poor ones on this front is falling well short of what is needed.

A UN report released Thursday shows some progress has been made. International public adaptation finance for developing countries climbed to $28 billion in 2022 from $22 billion a year earlier, the biggest increase since the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the UN Environment Programme. Yet that pales in comparison to the up to $387 billion that’s needed per year. Adaptation will require more money directed towards everything from building sea walls to investing in early warning systems.

At the same time, the developed world is facing a major bill from its own climate disasters. Back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton, which both hit the US, were estimated to cost insurers up to $55 billion. Flooding in the Spanish region of Valencia last week left more than 200 dead and is set to come with a recovery price tag of potentially more than $34 billion. The European Commission is planning a Climate Action Plan to put in place measures to make the world’s fastest-warming continent more resilient.

“Without action, this is a preview of what our future holds and why there simply is no excuse for the world not to get serious about adaptation, now,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director.

The Bahamas’ Newbold said the horror of recent disasters in Spain and the US could help bring attention to the long-neglected corner of adaptation finance. COP29 talks over money are set to be some of the toughest yet — especially after a victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election — so it is important that negotiators understand that the disasters afflicting small island states could happen anywhere, she said.

“Island states are going to be the ones engulfed by the oceans,” Newbold said. But “we’re all frogs in this boiling pot of water right now.”

Top photo: A damaged home in Elbow Key Island, Bahamas, in 2019. Photographer: Jose Jimenez/Getty Images.