Harjeet Singh

there can be no adaptation without development.

Let's also not think that only low-income countries are facing climate impacts.

Remember the floods in Germany a few years ago?

wildfires in Australia and Canada, even now, and the superstorms that are hitting the US far more frequently.

All these are challenging and overwhelming the capacity of these nations, who have robust power grids, emergency services, warning systems, but the fact is that they are losing billions of dollars.

You must be asking, why?

Why them?

because they never anticipated that the climate crisis is also going to hit them.

I've been following negotiations for years.

They always thought it's a developing country issue.

On the contrary, they kept increasing the fossil fuel extraction, which we all know is the cause of the climate crisis.

I'm talking about coal, oil and gas.

if you don't adapt, climate impacts are going to erode years of development gains.

And more fossil fuels means more climate impacts, leading to more losses and damages.

Now that was the heavy part.

Let's talk about some good news.

Studies from the Global Commission on Adaptation and the World Resources Institute have shown that for every dollar invested in adaptation,

we can save four to more than $10 that are later spent on disaster response.

That's an amazing return on investment, right?

So there's a very strong economic case to invest in adaptation now for a safer future.