Fifth National Climate Assessment: Innovations and Challenges in Securing Adequate Climate Risk Financing in the Northeast United States

Many early adopters of both climate mitigation and adaptation action have been in the Northeastern United States. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (2012) drove some of this action through programs focused on making rebuilding projects more resilient across all natural hazards. Now many constituencies across scales and sectors are moving ahead with funding climate planning and implementation. States, Tribal Nations, and local governments are also beginning to fund climate planning and project implementation with non-grant public funding, and private-sector actors are increasingly self-funding their own actions.

Continued progress in mitigating and adapting climate change in the northeast - and elsewhere - will ultimately depend on the ability to obtain adequate financing. The Northeast chapter of the fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5) examines the expanding number of options for climate risk financing, as recent efforts in the Northeast provides an opportunity to identify remaining knowledge gaps and challenges that constrain or enable action. This presentation will provide an overview on how climate risk finance has evolved over the past few years for individuals, businesses and communities in the Northeast. The session will focus on both public and private sources of climate risk funding, as well as novel solutions and products now coming to market.