Climate Finance And Care Services: Why Public Investment Is Necessary

(MENAFN- The Conversation) The care Economy is an important but unrecognised sector for climate change adaptation. I use the term“care economy” to encompass the work of caring for people that is paid and unpaid, largely undertaken by women. This work takes place in a range of places. This includes private and public settings, such as households, community centers, hospitals, schools, and care homes.

In a climate adaptation context, investing in infrastructure and quality services for care can help build resilience of families and communities. It can also strengthen preparedness and response efforts to various climate hazards.

However, in countries around the world, deficits in paid care services are widespread. They are especially apparent in urban areas where informal settlements, and poor access to energy, fuel, clean water, and basic services, make caregiving especially difficult.

Climate change only increases the needs for caregiving. Given the insufficiency of paid care services, the burden often falls on unpaid caregivers. Increasingly dangerous heat levels affect the health of young children and the elderly, who need more care. Floods, landslides, wildfires, hurricanes and cyclones damage care infrastructure and disrupt care services . Few disaster risk and preparedness plans, or plans for municipal level adaptation, consider care as a sector for investment and support.

Many countries have allocated public resources for care services, alleviating some of the unpaid care workload borne largely by women. But no country channels sufficient resources for a well-functioning system of care that meets the needs of people across the lifecycle. Domestic resources and international development assistance provide the bulk of support to help cities establish robust care system. But climate finance also has a role to play.

Analysis of climate finance, however, shows that nearly all country and global estimates ignore the costs of care services and the infrastructure that supports care. Estimates of the costs of adaptation to climate change in developing countries range from US$215 billion per year to US$387 billion per year up to 2030.

The good news is that adaptation finance has expanded in recent years . It has moved beyond shoring up coastal areas and retrofitting physical infrastructure, to cover education, health, social protection, and financial services. This represents progress, since some of the actions in these sectors support caregiving. But funding flows, at just US$21.3 billion in 2021, are insufficient to meet current needs.

Beyond whether finance is sufficient is the question of whether it is getting to the sectors, communities and people who need it. Very little of the money being set aside for adaptation is directed at healthcare, education or other services that support the care of people. The UN Environment Programme (2023) reports that only 4% of estimated total adaptation finance committed by donors has been targeted for health and 2% for education.

This needs to change.

There is growing recognition that climate finance should be directed to municipalities and cities, where adaptation activities are largely centred. Care services also take place in local communities , underpinning community resilience and enabling women to participate more fully in cities' preparedness for climate change .

At the same time, local areas face a shortage of resources even for adequate housing and public transportation, let alone for climate change adaptation. In a 2017 paper, Marek Soanes and his colleagues found that less than 10% of all climate finance was committed to local levels.

A more recent update by the United Nations Environment Programme finds that the amount has increased modestly to 17% from 2017 to 2021.

Opportunities exist for rectifying this. Cities and municipalities can break down the silos between those who plan for climate adaptation and those who work with care providers. By doing this they could come to a common recognition that investing in care services and infrastructure is a critical sector.

Some cities are beginning to consider how care systems can be incorporated in their climate adaptation response. These include Quezon City in Manila, the Philippines, and Renca in Santiago, Chile and Barcelona, Spain .

Important context for cities is their country's national adaptation plans. These describe priorities for climate preparedness and the actions that will be taken in different sectors. A detailed review of these plans would help cities understand the country's vulnerability risk to different climate hazards. This would enable them to determine which sectors are costed and what is missing.

Cities can also undertake or commission an exercise to map local care requirements and needs, existing care services and infrastructure, and the specific impacts of climate change on care delivery. This information can then be put into the national adaptation plan consultative process undertaken by the national authorities.

Based on these diagnostics, a second step is for cities to estimate the costs of the additional services for children and dependent adults that need to be provided, and to survey the care infrastructure that should be retrofitted. Recent tools, such as the International Labour Organization's care cost simulator , may be useful for planners to develop baseline estimates. These can then be fed into municipal disaster risk preparedness and response plans and broader adaptation efforts.

Another opportunity is to embed care as a sector in the documents that countries submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat as part of their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change under the Paris Agreement. Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are a country's public pledge detailing their national investment and development plans to help them develop more sustainable economies.

These submissions are updated every five years and the next set is due in 2025.

Nationally determined contributions include quantitative and qualitative targets, timelines, and actions in priority sectors, such as energy, transport, agriculture, health, water, infrastructure, tourism, among others, and budgets for achieving their climate goals. The actions and costs to establish care services can be incorporated in specific sectors like health or disaster risk response or itemised as a standalone sector.

Civil society engagement in the national adaptation plans and other climate related planning processes is critical and can amplify the message that care services are critical for climate resilience and adaptation. Civil society can also press for stronger mechanisms for fiscal transfers to sub-national levels.

Most importantly, these technical approaches need to be supplemented with a mindset change. The care of people and the care of the planet should be seen as deeply interconnected and as investment priorities for national governments and international donors.

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