Integrating regional interrelations in climate planning

Center for Participatory Research & Development (CPRD)’s policy brief, Addressing the Cascading Impacts of Climate Change: Scope of Transboundary Adaptation in the South Asian Delta’ calls for a bold shift from isolated national efforts to unified, regional adaptation strategies as the current frameworks, often focused on local or national responses, fail to address the interconnected nature of cross-border climate risks. https://lnkd.in/g2ta3jmu The escalating cross-border climate impacts in South Asia, concerning with the shared water resources like the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra River systems, the countries of the South Asian subcontinent, from the foothills of the Himalayan Range to the coastal plains, must prioritize cooperation to protect the shared river systems that sustain millions. This should begin with transparent data-sharing, equitable water-sharing agreements, and collaborative disaster response mechanisms. REMARKS 🔍 The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) recognized transboundary adaptation and highlighted the necessity of transboundary cooperation in managing shared water resources, ecosystems, and infrastructure to prevent maladaptation and boost resilience.   🔍 The global stock take process highlighted transboundary collaboration in managing water ecosystems, especially for vulnerable regions   🔍 The Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh Work Programme (GlaSS) also incorporated transboundary risks into its framework discussions with calls to integrate transboundary climate risk more explicitly into adaptation frameworks, setting a precedent for future COPs.   POLICY ARGUMENT AT COP 29 📢 Initiate a process at COP 29 for developing a collaborative framework for assessing and addressing cascading risk of climate change across the boundaries. The Frameworks must move beyond territorial approaches and foster regional collaboration in adaptation planning, with an emphasis on joint governance of shared resources, data transparency, and policies that reflect the interdependence of nations facing common climate risks.   📢 Establish an international regulation under the GGA: The COP 29 should initiate discussion for establishing an international regulation and its governance structure under the GGA to guide and regulate trans-boundary adaptation actions while also ensuring their means of implementation.

The 50°C Reality: Why Tech Won’t Save the Arab Region — But Governance Might The numbers in the new WMO report are stark: the Arab region is warming at roughly twice the global average. The FT highlights a quote arguing that “technology” and “ubiquitous air cooling” are the keys to livability. I disagree — technology is a band-aid. Governance is the immune system. Treating climate change merely as a “threat multiplier” risks a fatalistic narrative: chaos is inevitable, collapse is coming, and all we can do is adapt with more cooling, more desalination, more engineering. But the WMO report contains a different signal that’s easy to miss: It was co-produced with the League of Arab States. This matters. It shows that transboundary climate risks are already forcing transboundary political dialogue. And despite the region’s fragility, research consistently finds that shared environmental stress can trigger cooperation at least as often as conflict, especially around water, food, and extreme heat risks. So if we want to disrupt the pathways that turn climate impacts into security risks, the response won’t be found in more AC units or ever-higher energy consumption. It lies in: ⏩ Regional governance architectures that can manage a 50°C reality ⏩ Shared early-warning systems and regional, integrated adaptation plans ⏩ Agreements on water, energy, food, and mobility ⏩ Diplomatic mechanisms that turn risk into cooperation rather than competition The heat is rising. The need to work together is rising faster. The League of Arab States has taken an important step by acknowledging the data through the WMO collaboration. The next step isn’t engineering — it’s diplomacy, institution-building, and collective risk governance. #ClimateSecurity #MiddleEast #ClimateRisk

✋ The World Bank released the report, "Beyond Borders: Power Grid Interconnections and Regional Electricity Markets for the Sustainable Energy Transition" 👉 This report provides a foundational guide to regional energy integration, with a particular focus on developing and emerging economies 👉Many regions are about to integrate power grids and markets across national boundaries, which can offer economic benefits, enhanced power supply quality and security, and opportunities for scaling up climate change mitigation measures. 👉The report begins with an overview of the different levels of power system integration, followed by an analysis of the primary drivers behind regional energy integration. 👉It identifies five key building blocks essential for achieving deeper integration: interconnection infrastructure, planning and investment coordination, technical and operational coordination, commercial arrangements and market design, and institutional architecture. 👉The report also highlights the key challenges hindering the development of these building blocks, particularly issues related to political cooperation and financing. 👉It concludes by advocating for a collaborative, step-by-step approach, along with institutional capacity building and innovative financing mechanisms, to advance regional energy integration efforts. 👉 Key themes discussed: 1. Power Trade Across Borders 2. Evolution of the Power Grid and Market Integration 3. Drivers of Cross-Border Power Integration 4. Building Blocks of Regional Grid Interconnections and Electricity Markets 5. Challenges of the Power Grid and Market Integration 6. Looking Ahead Full report attached.

Too often, our discussions of climate and development finance focus on the supply side: - how many trillions are needed, - how to mobilize private capital, and - (sometimes) how to reform financial institutions. In doing so, we neglect the most critical foundation of all: planning. Energy systems, industrial sectors, cities, and transport cannot be financed in the abstract. They must be planned, through frameworks that assess technological options and pathways, sequence investments, and ensure affordability and resilience. Most major sectors are inherently regional: clean fuel corridors, mineral-based industrial hubs, cross-border grids, and transport systems that require coordination across markets. Innovation in new technologies—circular economy, optimized energy systems, innovations in industry or transport, storage (BESS), distributed resources (DERs)—must also be deliberately built into these pathways. Planning and pathways are what make such investments investable. Yet that is not how our financing approaches are usually structured. A bottom-up approach brings clarity on investment priorities anchored in a country’s development strategy and a region's opportunities for, and imperatives of, connectedness. From there, we need a technical and institutional framework that translates those priorities into costed, sequenced investment programs, supported by the right policies and institutions. The next step is an integrated financing framework that clarifies: • What can and should be financed through affordable sovereign borrowing (the IMF should then ensure access to adequate affordable borrowing, not impose arbitrary debt ceilings); • What should be led by the private sector; • Where would concessional or catalytic capital be most effective; • Which innovative tools (e.g. thematic or cities guarantee funds, liquidity mechanisms, etc.) could address structural barriers or project-specific risks. This approach also requires us to get much more precise about risk. Current practices compress diverse risks into blunt assessments. Sovereign ratings become a ceiling for public banks, cities, and projects. Instead, we should disaggregate risks (currency, liquidity, policy, offtake, etc.) and address each through fit-for-purpose structural reforms and tools. In short, financing the transition, and sustainable development more broadly, requires bottom-up planning and strategy-driven financing. When governments and regions are supported to do such planning, define what needs to be financed, and build the institutional and financial frameworks to support it, capital can flow where it’s needed. This also shows the limits of existing approaches to aligning finance (taxonomies, disclosures, due diligence) and the need instead for structural supports for planning, financing, and delivery. (image is of our 2022 Roadmap for Zero-Carbon Electrification in Africa https://lnkd.in/eFHmigmU).