Administrator Samantha Power at the COP28 PREPARE Call to Action Event

ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you so much. So, this is not a book plug but John Kerry wrote a book in the years in which we were not serving together in government – you might remember those years. His book is called Every Day is Extra, and it is a title that grows out of the way he and his buddies who survived the Vietnam War thought about life after that ordeal. And I don’t know anybody who lives more that way than this individual, John Kerry. And I don’t know anybody who will be able to look back on their time and their life and say, I treated every day as if it was extra. 

And on climate, his life’s calling, his life’s mission – to have been Secretary of State, leverage the relationships that he has built over a lifetime, chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and serving in the highest diplomatic role for the United States government, to leverage that for one ambition, which is to save our planet and to make sure that our planet remains a livable planet, to help communities adapt, and to mitigate the damage from the excesses that have been committed up to this point. 

John, every day is extra, everyday that we get to watch you in action is a day that inspires us to work harder so thank you, thank you so much. 

I also want to thank Secretary Kerry’s incredible team, just wonderful to work with, especially Pallavi Sherikar who has co-led this effort with Lindsey Doyle from USAID.

So, when we came together – Secretary, myself, Brian Deese, and we announced this call to action last year, I said a version of what the Secretary just said, which is that we hoped to create the same kind of energy for private sector adaptation commitments as we have seen, belatedly, for cutting emissions. 

A year out, I think it is fair to say we are well on our way. 

Over the past year, the ten companies that responded to our PREPARE Call to Action have made really important progress on their commitments. Microsoft, for example, opened its AI for Good Lab in Kenya, where they are training African climate scientists. MasterCard has built a digital platform connecting millions of smallholder farmers to advisory services and credit to help them build more resilient farms. All told, the ten initial companies are mobilizing more than $610 million and supporting more than 9 million people to adapt to the impacts of climate change. 

And it is proof of concept, that’s really what we are looking to do because we know 9.3 million people is a tiny share of the people who are now grappling with how to adapt to this changing climate. These companies have helped build the case for the world that investing in climate adaptation and resilience is not just good for the soul, it’s good for business. It is good for business. 

And as Secretary Kerry mentioned, and we’ll hear much more about, another PREPARE partner from our initial launch is BCG, whose study, as part of it’s PREPARE commitment, now allows companies to see that their peers’ investments in building climate resilience into their own operations and their supply chains are paying off. It's not just climate advocates, it’s business people who are now making this case. And again, we will hear more on companies netting anywhere from double to 15 times their adaptation investments in cost savings and avoided revenue losses. The possibilities for innovation in the private sector in the adaptation space are infinite. Creating everything from seeds that can still grow in extended drought, to pavements that can absorb excess water to prevent flood and flood damage. 

Momentum is building. And I am thrilled to announce, before we hand it over to our panel, that in one year, we have tripled the number of companies and partners, bringing our total under the PREPARE rubric to 31. The 21 new companies and partners are coming forward with voluntary commitments that will mobilize an estimated $2.3 billion in adaptation finance in developing countries. The work represented here now covers every area of adaptation that was in the original design of the Call to Action: water, insurance, food security, financial services, infrastructure, and health.

One company joining the Call to Action, Jupiter Intelligence, is developing a product that can model how any location on Earth will likely be affected in the years from now until 2100 by eight climate risks, from heat, to flooding, to drought, and quantifying the economic impact of those risks. That way, users can prepare for and adapt to the challenges that they’ll face in the future – and quantify the tradeoffs between different kinds of investments. Jupiter’s data is not only helping inform decisions in industries like agriculture, banking, and real estate – but also helping indigenous communities in South America decide how to develop their land to reduce risks. It’s also helping local experts in Nepal design an early warning system for landslides that are likely to be caused by increasing floods. In response to the PREPARE Call to Action, Jupiter is now expanding their work in 100 countries across Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific to help get those most affected by climate change the information they need to help communities adapt. 

I am looking forward to hearing more about efforts like these today. And here at USAID, we are eager to support your efforts, that is the private sector's efforts in any way we can. The United States provided $2.3 billion in adaptation finance internationally in fiscal year ‘22, which gets us closer to President Biden's pledge to spend $3 billion a year by 2024 on climate adaptation. And we have heard loud and clear what you need from governments to accelerate your adaptation investments, and we are sprinting to make that available. 

Just this morning, in fact, I announced that the USAID-supported Green Guarantee Company – the first privately run company designed to guarantee green bonds and loans in developing countries – that the GGC will launch early next year. We are using every tool in our toolbox to help build this market fast, from catalytic grants to blended finance to technical support. 

So I invite you, I implore you in the private sector, to engage with us and with our missions on the ground – we have missions in more than 80 countries, programs in more than 100 – to see how we can work together and help lower the barriers of entry for you and address some of the concerns you have about risk. 

For those of you who have not yet joined the Call to Action I know it’s just a matter of time. It’s a question on whether you accrue the first mover advantage. So I urge you to get in fast. Come onboard – and be part of this growing global movement for climate resilience.

Thank you so much.