Special Climate Change Fund

• FAQs About the GEF's Work on Adaptation
• FAQs about the LDCF
• LDCF Fact Sheet
• LDCF and SCCF Council Meeting Documents 

	Financing Adaptation Action
	Linking Adaptation to Development
Other publications on Climate Change
Consult the GEF Project Database for a complete list of Adaptation Projects

- Contact the Climate Change Team

1. ■ Adaptation
2. ■ Transfer of technologies
3. ■ Energy, transport, industry, agriculture, forestry, and waste management
4. ■ Activities to assist developing countries whose economies are highly dependent on income generated from the production, processing, and export or on consumption of fossil fuels and associated energy-intensive products in diversifying their economies

The Parties to the Climate Convention identified adaptation to climate change as the top priority of the SCCF. The SCCF serves as a catalyst to leverage additional resources from bilateral and other multilateral sources.

Financing Adaptation under the SCCF

All countries are vulnerable to climate change and instability in weather patterns. The poorest countries and the poorest people within them are the most vulnerable, being the most exposed and having the least means to adapt. In the past decade, climate related disasters, particuarly floods and droughts, have affected almost 300 million people in developing countries. These disasters are predicted to become more frequent under a changing climate. However, it is the smaller events—crop failure from poor rains, late starts to monsoons, or extreme heat—that lead to chronic losses and poverty traps.

With respect to adaptation, the SCCF assists developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, in implementing adaptation measures that reduce the vulnerability and increase the adaptive capacity of countries. The SCCF helps meet their capacity needs for the implementation of projects and programs that address these impacts.

Adaptation activities funded under the SCCF will be based on national communications, NAPAs (in the cased of LDCs only), national and regional relevant studies, and available information. Adaptation measures will be implemented where sufficient information is available to warrant such activities.

Climate Convention guidance identified, among others, the following priority areas for adaptation activities under the SCCF:

The SCCF will support capacity building for preventive measures, planning, preparedness and management of disasters relating to climate change, including contingency planning for droughts and floods in areas prone to extreme weather events.

Activities funded under the SCCF will also include improving the monitoring of diseases and vectors affected by climate change, improving disease control and prevention, forecasting and early warning systems, and strengthening and establishing national and regional centers and information networks for rapid response to extreme weather events.

The SCCF will also consider appropriate technological options in addressing the impact of response measures, consistent with national priorities and indigenous resources.

Technology Transfer for Adaptation will use the procedures and methodologies to assess technology needs for adaptation consistent with the approach adopted by the technology needs assessments (Tans) under the national communications.

The SCCF adaptation program already includes projects that finance adaptation measures in the following sectors:

To date, 13 donors (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) have made pledges to the SCCF. The total amount pledged is $90 million. Donor countries are continuing to contribute to the SCCF on a voluntary basis.