The Small Island Developing States (SIDS) together bear next to no responsibility for climate change, but their geographical, socioeconomic and climate profiles make them particularly vulnerable to its impacts. Spread across three regions, the 39 SIDS nations have received USD 1,689 million from multilateral climate funds between 2003 and 2018. This amount finances 255 projects in 38 SIDS (all SIDS have received finance except for Singapore). While approved funding for the SIDS has increased markedly in the past few years, it fulfils only a small part of actual needs. The Green Climate Fund (GCF) since 2017 has been the largest contributor to SIDS. In 2018, USD 255 million was approved for projects in SIDS. A full 76% of this is programmed by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), including the largest single project, which directs USD 86 million to the construction of a hydropower facility in the Solomon Islands. Further scaling up both climate adaptation and mitigation finance to the SIDS is vital – both to address the vulnerability of SIDS inhabitants by making agriculture, biodiversity and infrastructure sectors more resilient to climate impacts, and to shift the energy mixes of SIDS away from fossil fuels.
This is a 2018 update of Climate Finance Fundamentals Brief #12.
