Financing Landscape

Understanding adaptation finance gaps, barriers and opportunities across Europe

It provides the analytical foundation of CLIMATEFIT. It offers a structured understanding of how climate adaptation finance currently operates across European territories, identifying the main barriers, drivers and opportunities affecting the mobilisation of public and private finance.

What is Project Result 1?

Project Result 1 is the CLIMATEFIT’s Financing Landscape: a structured analysis of the current adaptation finance ecosystem across Europe. It examines how climate adaptation is funded and financed in practice, looking at the institutional context, existing financing approaches, market dynamics, and the main obstacles that still prevent adaptation projects from reaching scale.

It brings together the perspectives of both Public Authorities and Financial & Investment Entities. This dual perspective is essential, because one of the core challenges in adaptation finance is precisely the gap between public needs and financial expectations. By analysing both sides, PR1 does not only describe the current landscape — it helps clarify where the main disconnects lie, where enabling conditions already exist, and where realistic entry points for action can be found.

As such, it is not just a background study. It is the baseline on which other CLIMATEFIT results build, in particular those related to capacity building, investment strategies, investment plans and the development of finance-ready adaptation solutions.

Who is this result for?

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Public Authorities

To better understand financing barriers, funding opportunities and the conditions needed to make adaptation projects more investable.

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Financial & Investment Entities

To identify how adaptation projects are structured, where investment challenges lie, and which opportunities and instruments may be relevant.

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Policymakers

To inform discussions on adaptation finance gaps, enabling frameworks and the alignment between public needs and financial systems.

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Researchers and practitioners

To access a structured baseline analysis of the current adaptation finance ecosystem and its main dynamics.

Key takeways

Key outputs

Adaptation finance remains fragmented and difficult to navigate for both public and financial actors.
Public Authorities and Financial & Investment Entities often face different constraints, expectations and time horizons.
Beyond funding gaps, barriers also relate to governance, knowledge, risk perception and market readiness.
Better understanding of existing instruments, actors and financing logics is essential to build more investable adaptation projects.
PR1 helps identify realistic entry points for action and investment, rather than only describing challenges.

Adaptation Investment Landscape (D1.1)
The core deliverable of PR1 provides a comprehensive analysis of adaptation finance gaps, barriers, drivers and opportunities, and maps the main approaches, actors and financing dynamics relevant to climate adaptation.

Project Result 1 factsheets
Shorter and more accessible communication materials derived from D1.1 help introduce selected findings and key messages to broader audiences.