This blog post is part of the Nexus²⁵ project, a joint initiative of the Istituto Affari Internazionali and the Center for Climate and Security, focused on sustainable multilateralism, and supported by Stiftung Mercator. 

By Siena Cicarelli

In the runup to the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate change’s role in complex security and humanitarian crises is continuing to challenge the capacity and ambition of the international community. As perhaps the most contentious issue in global climate action, climate finance is rightly a top priority for advocates and world leaders in Dubai.

While most member states recognize that climate change is driving, and will continue to drive, migration and food insecurity, and is disproportionately impacting marginalized populations, climate finance is a glaring gap in their policies and plans to respond to the resulting threats. The massive injection of funding required and the domestic politics that continue to stymie investment from world leaders is a critical barrier to meeting countries’ emissions and resilience goals, or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In this context, we recommend three key priorities in the leadup to COP28: finding new approaches to climate finance; improving messaging on the urgency of the climate threat; and repairing transatlantic relations to show leadership.