Resilient CLIMATE Financing and Investment Taskforces

Project Information

CLIMATEFIT

Grant agreement ID: 101112705

DOI

10.3030/101112705

EC signature date 22 May 2023

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Climate, Energy and Mobility

Total cost

€ 5 760 510,01

EU contribution

€ 5 760 510,00

Coordinated by

FONDEN WORLD CLIMATE FOUNDATION
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CLIMATEFIT (Resilient CLIMATE Financing and Investment Taskforces)

Reporting period: 2024-09-01 to 2026-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

CLIMATEFIT addresses the urgent need for accelerated climate adaptation by tackling the critical adaptation finance gap in Europe. Despite growing policy ambition, a significant mismatch remains between adaptation finance needs and actual investment flows. Public funding alone cannot meet the challenge, so private sector financing ought to be mobilized.

The project aims to equip public authorities and financing and investment entities with the tools, knowledge and collaborative frameworks to blend public and private resources to finance climate adaptation.

Focusing on 17 European territories, CLIMATEFIT explores solutions by first identifying financing barriers and enablers. Building on this evidence base, the project develops and tests a coherent methodological framework that helps stakeholders design investment strategies, develop investment plans, and pilot bankable investment cases.

A key innovation is the creation of Local Resilience Taskforces composed of public and private stakeholders collaborating to advance adaptation finance. These taskforces take a systemic, participatory and place-based approach, accelerating finance flows towards the implementation of adaptation projects.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project has, as of February 2026, reached three main achievements: (i) released a report on the Adaptation Finance Landscape in Europe, summarising main barriers and levers to boost private finance, among others, (ii) produced two tools, including Investment Strategy and Investment Plan methodologies and guidance, for supporting local and regional authorities in adaptation investment planning, (iii) created a handbook with tools and guidance for the development of bankable adaptation projects promoted by public authorities.

Additionally, the project has also delivered numerous capacity building sessions tailored to local and regional authorities, enabling them to make the best of use of tools for adaptation investment planning and bankable project development. Complementing that two e-learning courses were launched, one for public authorities and another for financial and investment entities. Investors and financiers have also benefited from various capacity building webinars addressing key issues on private finance of climate adaptation.

CLIMATEFIT is also pioneering the establishment of Local Resilience Taskforces, facilitated collaborative spaces where local and regional authorities and financial institutions come together to overcome known barriers, such as governance, data availability, project scoping. The first learnt lessons from such endeavour have been drawn and shared through CLIMATEFIT's replicator programme and its EU Network of Local Resilience Taskforces.

All these approaches and tools have been co-designed and tested by leading local and regional authorities in seven European countries, namely, Portugal, France, Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia and Romania, resulting in 17 adaptation investment strategies and 10 adaptation investment plans.

Throughout 2026, public authorities further test the handbook for the development of adaptation investment concepts, with the expectation that 5 adaptation investment cases will be published by the end of the project.

All produced resources are found in CLIAMTEFIT's website and will soon be available in the ground-breaking Adaptation Finance Platform launched late 2026.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Furthermore, a brand-new Incentive Mechanism database and selection tool have been produced. This tool allows local and regional authorities to identify and explore numerous policy and financial mechanisms that incentivise private finance, considering the adaptation projects they promote and the bankability criteria typically considered by financial institutions.

Another result beyond the stated of the art is the development of a resilience-adjusted credit scoring methodology, addressing gaps in integrating climate risks into credit assessment and investment decision-making, particularly by banks. This first version of this methodology is being tested in 2026 and its full release is expected by the autumn of the same year.