Who pays for adaptation when the flood arrives first?

Adaptation finance is discussed as though it were a budget line. In practice it behaves like an insurance claim filed after the house has burned.

The communities absorbing the first losses are rarely the ones represented in the pledge conferences. That gap is not a technicality; it determines which projects are funded and which are studied.

A credible framework would front-load disbursement and accept a higher tolerance for imperfect project design. The alternative — perfect projects delivered late — is the status quo.