Abstract
Losses and damages (l&d) from climate change and the frequency of extreme events will burden our global budgetary constraints and adaptive capacities. Scientific and analytical support for allocating public funding in humanitarian aid and disaster management to counter them involves determining the most pertinent criteria to use or where to design forecasting. Their priorities are often assumed, and assumptions can be ill-fitting. Thus, we asked the key users of such information for their preferences.
A two-round anonymous Delphi method utilising global frameworks for a funding allocation simulation was employed to survey the stated preferences of a stratified panel of l&d experts (N = 36). They were experts from 19 countries of origin representing international organisations (e.g., United Nations, European Union, World Bank), the research sector, the public sector, and civil society (e.g., Save the Children, World Vision). The consensus and stability were analysed with parametric measures.
We find that the near-future preference for magnitude-indicating criteria, such as people-centric and disaster risk-based, outweighs the importance of indicators related to governance, the rule of law, or a socio-economic aspect. Likewise, financing adaptation options to climate change-related risks to food security, human health, and water security are a high near-future priority for minimising l&d compared to, for example, risks to living standards or risks to terrestrial and ocean ecosystems. The covariance suggests that these priorities are an emergent preference in the l&d sector. Thus, it raises further questions on what we can and should prioritise with scarce resources.
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Data availability
The relevant data that supports the findings are available within the article or its supplementary data. The rest of the generated data (e.g., raw freeform answers) is unavailable because it contains sensitive information that could compromise the privacy of research participants. The INFORM suite methodologies (https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/inform-index) and data behind IPCC key representative risks (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/chapter-16) are available at respective online sources.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the 36 Delphi panel experts for the considerable time and effort they contributed to this study via their professional assessments during the surveys and by providing insightful comments on the draft manuscript. The following panel members agreed to be named publicly after the rounds had concluded (alphabetically by first name):
• Bart van den Hurk, Scientific Director at Deltares and IPCC WG2 co-chair
• Clemens Gros, Consulting Senior Technical Adviser at Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
• Flavia Marà, Livelihoods Technical Advisor at World Vision Deutschland
• Isabelle De Schryver, Team Leader Evidence-Based Policy at European Commission – Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO)
• John Schneider, Secretary General at GEM (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation
• Marie Wagner, Information Management Officer at United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) Regional Office for West and Central Africa (ROWCA)
• Nicolas Rost, Head of Programme, Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) at United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA)
• Thuy-Binh Nguyen, Climate Change Adaptation Specialist at CARE Climate Justice Centre
We likewise thank discussants at the ‘Cross-border climate change impacts and systemic risks in Europe and beyond’ conference in Potsdam (16 to 18 October 2023) and colleagues for their valuable critique and comments.
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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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JPJ: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing—Original Draft. SVS: Methodology, Writing—Review & Editing. SVP: Supervision, Writing—Review & Editing.
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This research received clearance from the University of Antwerp’s Ethics Committee for the Social Sciences and Humanities (ref: SHW_2022_212_1 on 15/02/2023). Informed consent was provided by each participant at the end of each survey round on the online platform: “By clicking submit, you confirm that you have read the privacy statement, understood it, and consent completely voluntarily to participate in this study.”
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JPJ serves simultaneously at the European Commission as a full-time contract agent (the information and views set out in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission, SYSPER declaration 45634)—which was explicitly disclosed in both the first invitation email as well as in the online form description to the Delphi panel. SVS or SVP have no competing interests to disclose.
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Jäpölä, JP., Van Schoubroeck, S. & Van Passel, S. Preferences on funding humanitarian aid and disaster management under climatic losses and damages: A multinational Delphi panel. Climatic Change 177, 113 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03741-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03741-2