The world is on average 1.3 degrees warmer than in pre-industrial times, with 2024 representing the first single year in which the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement target was exceeded. This change is severe enough that it is now creating specific and measurable impacts on economies and societies. While governments in emerging markets have long been aware of climate change as a critical threat to their development, the impacts being felt today make resilience an urgent issue for businesses and governments across the globe.
Despite mounting evidence that climate change is creating massive costs for people, businesses, and societies, the continued vulnerability of the world to climate impacts reflects three crucial issues: limited ownership across sectors, the high complexity of the issue, and a critical under-resourcing of resilience-building measures.
The Climate Resilience Programme works to raise ambition for climate resilience so that more stakeholders take more action. It does this through the following projects:
- Insurability in a changing climate
This workstream aims to ensure climate risk is managed and spread in such a way as to minimize systemic risks. It convenes high-level dialogue to fostering shared understanding, advanced collaborative solutions, and explore pathways to scale these globally.
- Climate and Health
We support businesses in addressing escalating workforce vulnerabilities to extreme heat by engaging private sector leadership to take strategic action, issuing practical guidance, and creating forums for knowledge exchange and collaborative solutions on building resilience at the workplace.
- South-East Asia Partnership on Adaptation through Water (SEAPAW)
SEAPAW, a collaboration between the Singapore International Foundation and the World Economic Forum, accelerates Southeast Asia’s readiness to adapt to climate impacts through the lens of water. The initiative engages public, private and civil society stakeholders to strengthen regional cooperation and scale up resilience strategies.
- Global Future Council on Nature and Security
We convene leading experts at the intersection of nature and international security. The council works to deepen understanding of security risks stemming from climate change and nature loss, generating insights to inform
Climate change is impacting human health, with rising economic costs to industry, governments and communities. This report shows how businesses can protect their workforces, operations an...
Climate change will have a profound impact on people and economies – causing an estimated additional 14.5 million deaths and $12.5 trillion in economic costs between today and 2050. Howev...
