Measuring What the Roadmap Misses: Exposure Indices and the New Infrastructure of Climate Finance

The Baku to Belem Roadmap to 1.3T is about mobilising and directing climate finance, yet it says relatively little about how the underlying climate risks are to be measured, compared and fed into economic decision-making. For countries already grappling with rising debt, tightening fiscal space and escalating climate impacts, this is no longer a technical issue, it is also central to both their ability to plan and their leverage in climate finance negotiations.

The report does acknowledge the role of exposure indices and other related metrics but treats them largely as supporting diagnostics. In practice, they need to be understood as core infrastructure for the climate finance system. Without credible, country developed metrics that show how climate hazards are affecting growth, sectoral output and public finances, demands for adaptation finance, loss & damage support remain vulnerable to being dismissed as “aspirational”. With such metrics, especially when grounded in transparent methodologies, these demands can be reframed as responses to quantifiable risks. [Read more…]