Climate change is already upon us. But the money that developed countries have pledged to help developing nations adapt to it is nowhere near their investment planned for emission reduction projects. Efforts towards adaptation have long been put to one side in favour of mitigation, both politically and economically. Western governments and businesses see little appeal in a new aid stream, without the lure of carbon-offset credits or new markets that mitigation investments have to offer.

A mere 10.3–16.1% of the fast-start funds developed countries have pledged to help developing nations combat climate change during 2010–2012 are for adaptation rather than mitigation, according to a paper by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)¹. However, this hides big differences between individual donors: from a tiny 1.5% of the climate funds pledged by Japan to about a third of the total pledged by each of the EU and US, and to nearly two-thirds of the total pledged by Australia — a country hit by devastating floods earlier this year².

This is far from the 'balanced' allocation between adaptation and mitigation that developed countries have committed to as part of the international United Nations climate talks³. The money at stake is substantial — US$30 billion has been pledged in fast-start finance for 2010–2012 and US$100 billion a year from 2020. But such 'balance' has never been achieved. The Climate Funds Update website⁴, an initiative from the Heinrich Böll Stiftung and Overseas Development Institute, indicates that only a tenth of the money flowing through international climate-dedicated funds so far has been for adaptation. Another tenth has gone towards deforestation projects and the remainder to mitigation.

A yet-to-be-published analysis led by J. Timmons Roberts at Brown University in the US has looked at how development aid from the UK's Department for International Development is being spent in developing countries. Using a new marker introduced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) last year, he found that just 3–3.5% of 2,226 projects from 2008–2009 could be categorized as adaptation. Roberts also found that only 2 of the other 12 adaptation markers he tested came up with a much larger share (60–70%) for adaptation.

A big problem for adaptation is defining it. You can argue both for a very narrow definition that is limited to activities such as building flood defences for example, or for a much broader one that includes basic development work to create a more resilient society. Equally, it is not easy to define the areas most at risk of climate change — and therefore where adaptation funds should be spent.

Saleemul Huq at the IIED argues that a stronger case for adaptation funding could be made if there were greater clarity over what it is and what projects are benefiting from aid for it. Some developed and developing countries provide such information, but it is difficult to compare and often clouded by political interests. Independent research is underway however. In October 2009, a research team at the University of Texas in Austin received a five-year US$7.6-million grant from the US Department of Defense to identify adaptation projects and map out vulnerability to climate change in Africa. The rationale was to understand whether climate change will contribute to violent conflict in the region, which could affect US strategic interests.

For the researchers involved on the vulnerability side — led by political scientist Joshua Busby — the more immediate danger is large-scale humanitarian emergencies. Busby's team emphasizes that vulnerability is not purely based on environmental factors. Instead, they are producing sub-national vulnerability maps for Africa that combine four 'baskets' of indicators: physical exposure to natural disasters, population density, community and household resilience (for example, education, health and access to public services), and governance and political violence.

The maps have been continually updated since the start of the project. They are not time-bound in the sense of a seasonal map of emergent food insecurity, but instead show chronic vulnerability, using data sources from past decades (Fig. 1). Because historic exposure to climate-related hazards may not always accurately predict future exposure, Busby is now teaming up with climate modellers to create a better regional forecast out to 2050.

The researchers have had some surprises. “It's not clear that the most vulnerable areas are necessarily always the ones we might think,” says Busby. His team's drought indicator showed the areas around Nairobi in the south of Kenya to be most prone to drought, whereas an on-the-ground check showed that Kenyans tend to cite the north and northeast of their country as the most drought-prone. Two perennial problems Busby has to contend with are getting enough data and a lack of consensus over how to compare indices for drought.

Working in parallel to Busby's team is a group led by Catherine Weaver, also at the University of Texas, Austin, that is collecting data on all Overseas Development Aid flows to Africa. They have partnered with AidData to map out where individual projects are and label those related to adaptation. They use 7 of Roberts' 13 markers. Weaver's work requires collecting individual aid project documents. Her biggest challenges are getting hold of these and securing the manpower needed to work though them. The focus is initially on three countries: Malawi, Ethiopia and Uganda, with an aid map of the first due out this summer. “The idea,” says Weaver, “is that host governments themselves will ultimately be able to record aid flows and project types.” For now, AidData is piloting an idea called 'crowd sourcing', which lets local people submit data on projects through a mobile phone application.

Eventually, overlaying Weaver's aid maps on Busby's vulnerability maps will give policymakers a very clear picture of whether adaptation funding is going to where it is needed most. Developing countries will then have a strong basis for judging if adaptation aid is new and additional to existing Overseas Development Aid. The international community will ultimately have to decide what regions, countries and projects it prioritizes for adaptation funding. These will be political decisions, but at least they will be based on sound scientific evidence.