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The UK government is committing a record £7.9bn (US$10.7bn) in capital investments over ten years to enhance the country’s flood defenses, with the aim of protecting towns, cities, businesses and critical infrastructure from coastal and river inundations.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of floods, with the Environment Agency saying one-in-four homes in England will be at risk from river, sea, or surface water by 2050.

The promised funds will go towards “high-performance flood barriers” and “wetland restoration”, among other resilience measures, all of which have the potential to lower the costs of flood hazards and save public money. The government says every £1 spent on flood defenses is expected to prevent around £8 in economic damage. “We will leave no stone unturned to protect our citizens,” said Environment Secretary Steve Reed in a statement.

The capital commitment is the latest in a string of financing and policy announcements intended to modernize the country’s flood defenses. Last week’s Spending Review saw the government confirm £4.2bn (US$5.7bn) to build and maintain flood protections over the short term (2026-2029). On June 3, Floods Minister Emma Hardy launched a consultation on a new system that would make it easier for local councils to bid for flood resilience funding from Westminster.

While the announcement has been welcomed by the Environment Agency and adaptation advocates, some argue the investment does not go far enough. Writing on LinkedIn, Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the London Climate Resilience Review, said the allocation “appears to fall short of the minimum annual spend of £1.5bn a year, as recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission in 2023.”

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has released a voluntary climate risk disclosure framework designed to shed light on large banks’ extreme weather and energy transition exposures. The framework, which includes both qualitative and quantitative metrics, may be adopted by jurisdictional authorities to serve as a baseline for climate reporting. One of the climate risk strategy disclosures asks banks to describe their “current and anticipated indirect mitigation and adaptation efforts.” (Basel Committee)

Italy’s independent fiscal watchdog has warned that the public finance burden from floods, droughts, and heatwaves could rise from 0.2% of GDP in 2024 to 5.1% by mid-century if emissions remain high. That cost could be trimmed to 0.9% under a carbon-neutral pathway. The Parliamentary Budget Office (UPB) also projected that the frequency of extreme weather events could increase sixfold by 2050. if climate change is left unchecked. (Reuters)

Southern Europe faces mounting fiscal and economic risks from worsening water scarcity issues driven by droughts, booming tourism, aging infrastructure, and population pressures, according to credit rating agency S&P Global. A new report warns that underinvestment in leaky, fragmented water networks across Spain and Italy could erode regional creditworthiness, especially in agriculture- and tourism-dependent economies. Moreover, without long-term investment and better coordination across government tiers, local regional governments in these countries could face fiscal shocks and diminished growth potential. (S&P Global)

State Farm policyholders in California face a 55% average premium hike between 2023 and 2026 — up to US$1,015 more per year — if a proposed rate increase by the insurance giant is approved, according to a new analysis by the Center for Climate Integrity. The proposed 11% rate uplift, first requested by State Farm in May, would mark the insurer’s second hike in less than a year. The company claims the increase is necessary to recover costs from the Los Angeles wildfires in January. (Center for Climate Integrity)

The Catalytic Climate Finance Facility (CC Facility) has allocated US$1.1mn to support innovative climate finance projects in Africa and Asia. Awardees include the Emata Special Purpose Vehicle, a digital financing provider that facilitates climate-smart agriculture solutions, and Nordic Impact Funds, which supports small and medium-sized enterprises that drive climate adaptation and livelihood improvements. The CC Facility is backed by donors including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Global Affairs Canada, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. (Climate Policy Initiative)

European regulators remain committed to integrating climate risk into financial oversight, even as the US under President Trump retreats from international climate cooperation, according to Irene Heemskerk of European Central Bank’s Climate Change Centre. In an interview with Bloomberg, she said that climate and environmental risks remain core to financial stability, and that many central banks continue to engage on climate issues. (Bloomberg)

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and QBE Asia have inked a deal to expand the use of IFC’s Building Resilience Index (BRI), a web-based hazard mapping and resilience assessment framework. The tie-up aims to bridge the property insurance gap and incentivize climate-resilient construction across Asia-Pacific. It is also intended to support insurance innovation — by supplying the data and insights for creating parametric products and tailoring favorable terms for resilient buildings. (IFC)

The Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) has approved US$8.9mn of climate resilience grants for the Solomon Islands. The money will buttress the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Resilient Rural Economic Growth and Food Security project, which was set up to transform the agrifood system by integrating climate adaptation into policies and practices. (FAO)

President Trump said he wants to “wean” states off of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and transfer disaster response responsibilities to governors after this hurricane season. 

“The governor should be able to handle it and frankly if they can’t handle the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn’t be governor,” the president said in the Oval Office last Tuesday.

Despite overwhelming public support for FEMA’s role in strengthening climate resilience and responding to extreme weather shocks — as evidenced by the near 12,000 positive comments received in a recent consultation — Trump and his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have repeatedly called for the agency to be slimmed down or abolished. In March, Noem said she planned to “eliminate” the agency, and it has already closed programs that sent billions for climate resilience to vulnerable communities.

In place of FEMA, Trump says the federal government could make direct payments to states dealing with disasters, though it is unclear how this would work in practice. In March, the president signed an executive order that calls for states, local governments, and individuals to play “a more active and significant role in national resilience and preparedness”, on the basis that such efforts are “most effectively owned” at these levels.

FEMA continues to be rocked by personnel changes as its ultimate fate hangs in the balance. The head of the agency’s National Response Coordination Center, Jeremy Greenberg, who has responsibility over the government’s response to storms, submitted his resignation last Wednesday and will leave later this month. Tony Robinson, regional administrator for FEMA Region 6 — which includes the hurricane-prone states of Texas and Louisiana — is also departing, sources told CBS News. 

The UN Ocean Conference in Nice concluded with the adoption of the “Nice Ocean Action Plan,” which highlights the oceans’ essential role in climate mitigation and adaptation. The declaration calls for increased scientific research and financial commitments to bolster ocean governance and achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is focused on ocean and marine resources conservation. The conference also saw Brazil and France launch the Blue NDC Challenge, which pushes nations to prioritize the ocean in their climate strategies ahead of COP30. (UN)

President Trump signed an executive order to overhaul wildfire prevention and response strategies across the US in the wake of this January’s Los Angeles wildfires. The directive calls for the consolidation of federal wildland fire programs, and urges state and local governments to adopt advanced technologies such as AI and data sharing for improved firefighting capabilities. It also promotes the removal of regulatory barriers and the use of prescribed fires and innovative land management to mitigate wildfire risks. (The White House)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will stop publishing new content on its widely used climate.gov website starting July 1, following the dismissal of the site’s entire editorial and visualization team. The website is a trusted source of climate data — having been visited by nearly a million users a month in 2021 — offering real-time maps, seasonal outlooks, and educational resources on drought, emissions, and extreme weather. The move comes amid broader cuts to federal climate programs under the Trump administration. (NPR)

Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy has been criticized by Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco for its ineffective design and lack of prioritization of climate risks. Despite CAD$6.6bn (US$4.9bn) of investments since 2015, only one of three adaptation strategy components is operational, DeMarco’s report says, and this one is riddled with gaps. The report also highlights the absence of updated targets until 2030 and insufficient progress on key federal programs. (Office of the Auditor General of Canada)

Indonesia will break ground on a US$80bn, 500-kilometer sea wall along Java island, President Prabowo Subianto announced, marking the launch of one of the world’s most ambitious coastal defense projects. The wall is designed to combat worsening floods and coastal erosion on the sinking, densely populated island, which is home to over 158 million people. (Reuters)

AI giant NVIDIA has debuted ‘Climate in a Bottle’ — cBottle for short — which it claims is the world’s first generative AI foundation model for high-resolution climate simulations.

The model, part of the company’s Earth-2 climate digital twin cloud platform, can generate realistic atmospheric conditions conditioned for the time of day, seasonal cycles, and sea surface temperatures thousands of times faster than traditional numerical models. It can also simulate extreme weather events, like flood-inducing rains or the hot, dry winds that can spread wildfires, capabilities invaluable to businesses and governments preparing for climate shocks.

cBottle is trained on five decades of observational data and high-resolution simulations, and NVIDIA claims it is able to fill missing or corrupted climate data and “super-resolve” low-resolution climate data for sharper insights. It can do all this with a lower compute and memory load than traditional models, the company claims, with the ability to compress petabytes of data by up to 3,000x for an individual weather sample.

Early adopters like the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the Allen Institute for AI are using cBottle to support Earth system modeling projects, with hopes of compressing Earth observation data and high-res climate simulations into a user-friendly, queryable generative AI system.

The cBottle launch is the latest in a flurry of climate foundation model announcements, including from Microsoft, Google, and Clay. VCs say these platforms help accelerate the democratization of climate risk data. “There’s a huge opportunity in the long tail — bringing innovations like NVIDIA’s Earth-2, IBM’s Prithvi, or even Google’s WeatherNext down to small- and medium-sized customers worldwide … not just academia, large engineering firms, or government agencies,” John Robinson, a partner at the fund Mazarine Climate, told Climate Proof. 

Beewise, a builder of robotic bee homes that protect the insects from climate impacts and pests, has raised US$50mn in Series D funding. Backed by Insight Partners, APG, and Fortissimo Capital, the company is scaling deployment of its autonomous hives to combat bee colony collapse, which poses a major threat to global food security. The company’s flagship innovation, the BeeHome, uses real-time machine learning and solar-powered robotics to safeguard bees from climate shocks, pests, and pathogens. (Beewise)

SORA Technology, a Japanese startup, has secured JPY¥670mn (US$4.8mn) to advance its drone and AI solutions for public health and climate resilience. The investment, backed by Nissay Capital’s Sustainability Challenge Fund and other institutional investors, aims to accelerate SORA’s initiatives in six African countries, focusing on AI-driven disease forecasting and drone-based malaria control. (Sora Technology)

The Philippines has introduced a satellite-based crop insurance and agro-advisory service aimed at bolstering climate resilience for rice farmers. Launched as a pilot by the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation, the initiative seeks to address the limitations of traditional insurance by implementing a new Area-Based Yield Index Insurance (ARBY), which facilitates payouts without the need for on-site damage assessments. (International Rice Research Institute)

Scientists have successfully edited the DNA of oat for the first time, opening the door for the development of higher-yielding, climate-resilient varieties of the staple crop. The research, supported by the Prairie Oat Growers Association, could also reduce chemical use in agriculture and expand the geographies in which the crops could be grown.  (McGill University)

Beyond adjustment: A new paradigm for climate change adaptation in a complex world (Global Environmental Change)

Economic policy uncertainty and environmental quality: unveiling the moderating effect of green finance on sustainable environmental outcomes (Humanities and Social Sciences Communications)

A flexible framework for urgent public health climate action (American Journal of Public Health)

How climate adaptation policies increase green total factor productivity? (Journal of Cleaner Production)

Investing in Climate for Growth and Development (OECD)

Driving loss reduction through state-create residual insurance markets (Environmental Defense Fund)

Strengthening financial systems for climate adaptation (CGAP)

Reclaiming tax sovereignty to transform global climate finance (Tax Justice Network)

Climate-resilient WASH: the key to holistic, funded and actionable climate plans (WaterAid)

Social fairness in preparing for climate change: how resilience can benefit communities across Europe (European Environment Agency)

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor