Citizenship for Climate Finance, Trump's National Resilience Strategy, AI Adaptation Decision-Making, and More

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Wealth Visas Eyed as New Funding Stream for Climate Vulnerable Nations

Investment migration — the practice of wealthy individuals obtaining citizenship in return for a large financial commitment to a country — could be harnessed to unlock billions in resilience financing for the world’s most climate-vulnerable states, a new report claims.

Written by investment migration specialists Henley & Partners and the Climate Vulnerable Forum — a coalition of 70 countries on the frontlines of climate change — the report calls for the creation of Investment Migration Resilience Funds (IMRFs), which would pool capital from wealthy migrants for climate adaptation, disaster recovery, and economic improvement. These funds could help bridge adaptation finance gaps in Small Island Developing States (SIDs) and other climate-vulnerable nations, although the report does not say how much could be raised this way.

“Investment migration is evolving from an economic tool into a planetary stewardship mechanism. Effective programs now fund measures such as seawalls and smart agriculture while giving participants global mobility and the opportunity to support environmental solutions,” Henley & Partners’ CEO Juerg Steffen writes.

As a model for future IMRFs, the report cites an Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program that Henley & Partners set up for the small island nation of Nauru. This allows foreigners to obtain Nauru citizenship in return for a US$130,000 minimum investment. Proceeds are used to finance coastal preservation, food security enhancement, biodiversity protection projects, and more.

Henley & Partners claims that one advantage of IMRFs is that they can finance climate resilience without adding to the sovereign debt of countries. Investment-for-citizenship pacts are not loans, like the majority of climate finance received by vulnerable countries, but “sovereign equity” — which does not have to be paid back by the receiving government. IMRF proceeds can also be deployed faster than capital provided by public finance institutions, like development banks, which often have bureaucratic constraints on their use.

In Brief

S&P Global analysis shows that companies face significant hidden exposure to physical climate risks through their value chains — not just their direct operations. Sectors like agribusiness, consumer food, and autos are particularly vulnerable because they rely heavily on climate-sensitive upstream industries. Without adaptation, these indirect exposures are expected to grow by over 8% by 2050, bringing with them operational disruptions and financial troubles. S&P urges decision-makers to integrate value-chain risk into resilience planning to avoid compounding climate vulnerabilities. (S&P Global)

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is leading a multistate lawsuit to unblock billions in federal clean energy funds threatened by the Trump administration. The suit defends Minnesota’s green bank, MnCIFA, and similar institutions in other states, arguing that the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) moves to freeze and terminate funding violate constitutional separation of powers and federal grant law. MnCIFA had expected to deploy EPA-authorized funds to accelerate the state’s decarbonization goals and bolster resilience. Minnesota is also suing Citibank, which holds the approved funds and has frozen access to them in response to an alleged illegal order from the FBI. Other plaintiffs named in the suit are the California Infrastructure and Development Bank, Efficiency Maine Trust, and Illinois Finance Authority, which have also seen previously approved green finance grants held up by the Trump administration. (Minnesota Attorney General)

Massachusetts has awarded US$2.1mn in grants for 17 river and wetland restoration projects aimed at boosting climate resilience, reducing flood risks, and restoring wildlife habitat across the state. Funded through the Division of Ecological Restoration, these projects will remove aging dams, restore abandoned cranberry bogs, replace failing culverts, and enhance tidal flow to degraded coastal areas, among other things. (Commonwealth of Massachusetts)

Just Climate, an offshoot of Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management, has raised US$175mn from pension fund CalSTRS and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund to back nature-based solutions. Its first investment earlier this year was in NatureMetrics, a biodiversity monitoring firm using environmental DNA and AI to provide high-quality nature data. Future investments by Just Climate aim to transform land use to reduce emissions and promote nature. (Just Climate)

Trump Orders States, Communities to Shoulder Resilience Investments

President Trump ordered far-reaching changes to federal disaster preparedness and response while shifting the burden of climate resilience away from Washington.

In an executive order signed Tuesday, Trump said it is now US policy for states, local governments, and individuals to “play a more active and significant role” preparing for wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters. At the same time, the federal government would “streamline its preparedness operations” by scrapping or amending existing policies.

The order instructs Michael Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, to conduct a broad review of existing federal policies on critical infrastructure, national continuity, and preparedness and disaster response. As part of the review, a number of Biden-era orders on climate resilience and preparedness are under scrutiny, including one that established the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience. This is intended to harden US supply chains to “climate stressors and extreme weather events”, along with other potential disruptions.

Waltz is further ordered to publish a National Resilience Strategy by mid-June “that articulates the priorities, means, and ways to advance the resilience of the Nation.” The resulting strategy is to be reviewed and revised every four years, “or as appropriate”. 

By November 13, Waltz must also develop a “National Risk Register” that identifies and quantifies “natural and malign risks to our national infrastructure, related systems, and their users.” The register is intended to inform private sector and state-level investments in resilience, and direct federal budget priorities.

In addition, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem must propose changes to how the federal government currently organizes national preparedness and continuity, which the order says is “bureaucratic” and involves “overlapping and overbroad ‘Functions’”. These are bundles of procedure and protocols used to respond to catastrophes. Her proposals must be presented by March next year.

“With this executive order, the Trump administration aims to shift most of the responsibility for disaster preparedness to state and local governments, asking them to make more expensive infrastructure investments without outlining what support the federal government will provide,” said Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst in the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Given what is at stake, the lack of details … is baffling particularly considering the planning, time and level of funding that is needed for disaster preparedness and resilience and the freezes this administration has made to grant programs targeted for those purposes.”

In Brief

London’s Heathrow Airport was forced to close last Friday when a nearby substation supplying power to the transit hub caught fire. The incident, which halted over 1,300 flights, spotlights the growing vulnerability of energy infrastructure to disruption — including from extreme weather events. As climate change drives more frequent heatwaves, floods, and storms, UK energy systems face rising physical risks that can cascade across critical infrastructure, according to researchers from Newcastle University. These could result in more outages and widespread disruption to UK transit infrastructure. The researchers recommend a system-wide resilience approach to this challenge, including strengthening substations, deploying smart sensors, and establishing clear standards for all climate hazards to future-proof the grid. (The Conversation)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shall in most cases have the final say on whether Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employees keep their jobs after their current terms expire. The policy change, announced last Friday, paves the way for many of the agency’s workers to be let go amid a broader push by President Trump to downsize federal agencies. Nearly 80% of FEMA’s staff were made up of reservists and on-call workers as of 2022 — short-term employees who could be first in line for dismissal by Noem. A reduction in FEMA’s workforce could lower the agency’s capacity to respond to disasters. (Bloomberg News)

France has released its third national climate adaptation plan, which prepares the country for up to 4°C of warming by 2100. It contains 52 measures across five key areas: protecting people, ensuring resilience of territories and essential services, adapting human activities, protecting natural and cultural heritage, and mobilizing national resources. Around €600mn (US$648mn) is being earmarked to implement the plan, the government says, including €300mn (US$324mn) to protect against major climate-related hazards. An additional €1bn (US$1.1bn) will be set aside from water agencies’ budgets from 2025-2030 to invest in the adaptation measures. Experts warn that these outlays fall short of what’s needed, and that successful implementation will require stronger governance and scaled-up investment. (RFI)

A new report from the Pacific Institute and DigDeep offers over 100 strategies to help frontline US communities build climate-resilient water and sanitation systems in equitable ways. It emphasizes community-driven solutions — from solar-powered water systems like those used by the Navajo Nation to nature-based infrastructure like wetland restoration — tailored to local social, economic, and environmental contexts. The report organizes solutions across eight categories: built infrastructure, technology and innovation, natural infrastructure, management and planning, funding and financing, knowledge and information, capacity building, law and policy. (Pacific Institute)

AI Outplays Static Defenses in Cutting Climate Costs for NYC, Study Finds

AI-based decision-making methods could lower the costs and increase the effectiveness of climate adaptation for cities like New York.

A new study by researchers at Princeton and Rutgers used reinforcement learning (RL), an approach to training AI, to generate potential responses to sea-level rise around Manhattan. Adaptation decisions were simulated in 10-year intervals out to 2100 and compared with existing methods to protect against encroaching waters.

The researchers found that the RL methods — including adaptive seawall construction and strategies like retrofitting at-risk structures and removing properties from flood zones — were more cost-effective than ‘static’ solutions used today. For example, a dynamic seawall that is adapted over time in response to sea-level rise reduces the expected net cost to NYC by 6% to 36% under a moderate climate scenario, and 9% to 77% under a high emissions scenario, relative to conventional adaptation methods.

Net cost is the sum of the cost of the adaptation solution and the estimated damage that the solution fails to prevent. For example, spending US$10mn on a seawall that allows US$50mn in property damage would have a $60mn net cost, while a solution that costs US$30mn and resulted in US$15mn in damage would have a US$45mn cost.

The researchers also showed that multi-step approaches to adaptation — combining managed retreat from flood risk areas, property reinforcement, and direct coastal protections — could reduce costs by 5-15% relative to a one-shot seawall strategy.

Moreover, the RL “adaptive” solutions typically have lower initial costs than conventional methods, which could make them more attractive to stakeholders considering how to defend urban areas from climate shocks.

In Brief

OceanWell, a water solutions company, is trialing a novel deep-sea desalination system in Southern California that could transform the way coastal regions source fresh water. The tech uses underwater “pods” anchored beneath the surface to take in seawater and deliver purified fresh water to the shore while avoiding brine pollution and harm to marine life. If the pilot is successful, OceanWell aims to launch its first offshore “water farm” by 2028, offering a scalable, climate-resilient solution to rising drought risk and shrinking water imports. (OceanWell/LA Times)

FireSat, a new satellite constellation developed by Google Research, Muon Space, and others, has launched the first of more than fifty devices to improve early detection of wildfires. The constellation will use AI to spot wildfires as small as 5x5 meters in size and provide updated high-resolution images on nascent blazes every 20 minutes. By enabling earlier response, especially in remote or mountainous areas, FireSat aims to reduce both the destruction and emissions from wildfires, while gathering reams of data to improve wildfire science and climate resilience. (Google)

Parametric InsurTech company Yokahu has launched cat-risk.com, an independent exchange where insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and data providers can come together to arrange parametric insurance transactions — financial products that promote disaster resilience. The platform allows carriers that are part of the London insurance market, Lloyd’s, to co-insure parametric risks based on their risk appetites. It also facilitates fast parametric insurance policy payouts through automatic policy triggering and instant claims approval. Yokahu says the platform currently supports extreme weather risks, including hurricanes, typhoons, and storms, with limits up to US$5mn per transaction. (Yokahu)

RESEARCH

Heat-related health risks for people experiencing homelessness: A rapid review (Journal of Urban Health)

From risk to resilience: The case for flood-resilient communities, economy and growth (Public First)

Building climate-resilient health systems in Sierra Leone: addressing the dual burden of infectious and climate-related diseases (Infectious Diseases of Poverty)

One-third of the global soybean production failure in 2012 is attributable to climate change (Communications Earth & Environment)

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor