As part of this Call to Action launch during COP27, ten companies are announcing specific commitments that improve climate resilience for consumers and communities experiencing climate impacts first-hand. Commitments in support of this Call to Action include expansions of climate information and early warning systems, introduction of new financial products and services, innovations for climate-smart food systems, and paradigm-shifting insurance solutions. Initial companies to join the Call to Action include: Google, Gro Intelligence, Mastercard, Marsh McLennan, Meta, Microsoft, Pegasus Capital Advisors, PepsiCo., SAP, and WTW (formerly Willis Towers Watson).

This Call to Action recognizes the urgent need for both private and public sector action to address long-standing gaps in climate adaptation. It also acknowledges that progress on reducing emissions resulted, in part, from over a decade of public and private sector collaboration, and that strong collaboration with attention to the needs of local communities, can drive further action on global climate adaptation.

For these reasons, Secretary Kerry and Administrator Power call on private sector actors to draw on their unique resources, expertise, and innovation to support inclusive approaches to climate adaptation. Together, we can remove barriers to investment in adaptation and, together with a 1.5 degree future, build a future in which communities are able to thrive, even in the face of climate change.

Mobilizing Resources for Adaptation through PREPARE

PREPARE will support half a billion people in developing countries to adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change by preparing knowledge, plans, programs, and finance for adaptation and resilience efforts. Nineteen U.S. federal agencies with experience adapting to impacts across diverse sectors are committed to partnering with climate-vulnerable countries and communities to increase their resilience to climate impacts. President Biden is also working with Congress to provide $3 billion in adaptation finance annually for PREPARE by 2024.

This Call to Action is aligned with PREPARE’s strategic efforts to mobilize public and private resources for climate adaptation and address barriers to investment to help achieve the scale and innovation needed to address these gaps.

As detailed in the PREPARE Action Plan, the U.S. Government is undertaking efforts to accelerate financing of adaptation measures by enhancing engagement with multilateral funds, strengthening the capacity of partner countries to access finance for adaptation, and supporting the development of bankable investments and climate risk finance strategies.

Call to Action Focus Areas

With a focus on climate-vulnerable partner countries, this Call to Action invites the private sector to invest in the resilience of their supply chains and workforce, innovate on new products or efficiency gains needed to adapt to a warming world, or to deploy products and services that enable people to prepare for and manage climate impacts.

Consistent with the broader PREPARE Action Plan, this Call to Action aims to galvanize private sector action in six focus areas with an emphasis on supporting vulnerable populations, including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and low income and marginalized groups. These constituencies have historically been excluded from adaptation planning and action, yet often face the greatest risks.

The six focus areas include:

Climate information Services

Commitments to expand access to or usability of early warning and climate information services to make informed decisions about how to address the risks posed by a changing climate. Illustrative examples include digital tools to link early warning systems to local options for action, data management and storage, broadband expansion, support for the observation, monitoring, modeling, forecasting, and response to impacts like sea level rise, drought, wildfire, and extreme flooding events.

Infrastructure

Commitments to systematically address the risk of cascading climate impacts in infrastructure planning, design, and development. Illustrative examples include the development of new infrastructure and materials, both grey and green, that build the resilience roads, bridges, waterways, ports, pavement, and other critical sectoral infrastructure (e.g. permeable pavement, fire-resistant building technology, drainage).

Water

Commitments to provide solutions for water scarcity and flooding in alignment with local climate risk. Illustrative examples include water harvesting, recycling, and storage technologies across supply chains, potable water management and waste management, advances in low/zero-carbon technologies and services for water collection, treatment, harvesting, and storage; desalination; leak detection; investment in local water management across the supply chain.

Health

Commitments that support the access to and delivery of health care in the face of climate impacts, and goods and services that reduce and address novel health threats. Illustrative examples include building supply chains for materials and infrastructure that address human well-being amidst extreme heat, such as cool roofs and low-cost cooling systems. This could also include using climate risk assessments to geographically expand the distribution of vaccines and other prevention practices for vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and dengue, that are proliferating due to global warming.

Food and agriculture

Commitments to reduce global hunger and malnutrition spurred by climate change. Illustrative examples include strengthening supply chains for regenerative and resilient agricultural and sustainable fishing practices, advance purchase or offtake agreements from suppliers that are using climate-resilient practices or products, clean energy/low-emission cold storage, drought-resistant crop varieties, climate-resistant crop storage technologies, greenhouses, biodigesters, precision agriculture and drip irrigation, and nature-positive production, sourcing, processing, logistics handling, and distribution.

Financial Tools and Services

Commitments to develop new tools, products, or services that drive investment into adaptation (e.g., adaptation-focused index funds, innovative approaches to insurance and broadening coverage, mobile money linked to disaster risk finance). This could include financial tools and services for emerging and developing country market structures.

Responding to the Call

Additional information on responding to the Call to Action can be found through the Global Resilience Partnership by reaching out at calltoaction@globalresiliencepartnership.org.

Founding Participants in the Call to Action

Founding participants for the PREPARE Call to Action include Google, Gro Intelligence, Marsh McLennan, Mastercard, Meta, Microsoft, Pegasus Capital Advisors, PepsiCo., SAP, and Willis Towers Watson.