Small islands face outsized climate impacts and require US$12 billion a year in climate finance to cope

Excerpt from gca.org

Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 7 October 2025 – The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) today launched State and Trends in Adaptation 2025: Small Island Developing States (SIDS), the most comprehensive assessment to date of climate risks, macro-economic impacts and practical solutions for the world’s 39 island economies. The report shows that, without accelerated adaptation, cumulative climate damages across SIDS could reach as high as US$476 billion by 2050—equivalent to several years of national output in some countries—yet current international public adaptation finance to SIDS averages just over US$2 billion a year, or 0.2% of global climate finance. GCA calls for a step-change to at least US$12 billion annually, a level SIDS themselves identify in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), noting this represents only around 1.2% of global climate finance and about 4% of global Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).