RegionsAdapt Report 2025: Financing Adapation Where Change Happens: Scaling subnational action to close the gapRegionsAdapt Report 2025
The RegionsAdapt Progress Report 2025 “Financing Adapation Where Change Happens: Scaling subnational action to close the gap” offers an in-depth look at where regions stand on adaptation finance – the challenges they continue to face, the solutions they are already implementing to fund climate-resilient territories, and the key recommendations to scale up action and investment where resilience is built.
Drawing insights from 41 reporting RegionsAdapt members, the report presents 11 subnational stories that demonstrate how strategies addressing both biodiversity and climate finance can drive effective climate actions. From carbon revenue to devolved, these stories illustrate how leveraging climate finance can yield positive outcomes for both nature and communities.
Key Findings: Regions as the Missing Link in Climate Finance
Subnational governments – regions, provinces, states – manage the infrastructure, land use, water, health, rural and urban systems where climate impacts are already manifest. They operate at the interface of global ambition and local delivery. Yet international adaptation finance continues to flow primarily via national channels, limiting regional access, constraining innovation, and reducing the scale of what is possible on the ground.
This report reveals three dynamics:
- Regions are already acting — scaling municipal efforts, shaping cross-sectoral adaptation, mobilising their own-source revenues.
- Structural barriers persist in some regions — weak mandates, low creditworthiness, data/monitoring deficits, and project preparation bottlenecks .
- Scaling requires system change — dedicated windows for subnational access, institutionalised multilevel governance, project-prep ecosystems and transparency in tracking flows.
The Report was launched at COP30, in Belém, Brazil, November, 2025.
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- DATE
- 11.11.2025
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- TYPE
- Report
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- 6.10MB
