EU Natural Catastrophe Fund, California's Wildfire Resiliency Study, Xoople's $130mn Raise, and More

People have all sorts of reasons for attending in-person conferences. For start-ups, sourcing leads is usually reason enough to shell out for a ticket. Executives at more established companies often use the occasion to position themselves as thought leaders and expand their networks. But as a climate adaptation media pro, I find conferences offer a useful snapshot of prevailing wisdom — and of which trends have people excited, whether or not they should be.

Last week’s ClimateTech Connect conference, held outside Washington, DC, provided exactly this kind of opportunity to take stock. The event brought together hundreds of experts and practitioners from the worlds of finance, business, and technology. The insurance industry was particularly well represented, as were the ever-expanding ranks of the climate intelligence and data communities — you couldn’t turn around without encountering another SaaS vendor promising untold billions of datapoints to help companies gird for worsening climate risks.

While I paid my way by hosting a panel on ‘Building the Resilient Enterprise’, I spent most of my time shooting the breeze with contacts old and new, trying to get a handle on the current state of the adaptation and resilience ‘market’, such as it is.

Here are a few fast-and-dirty observations:

First, adaptation has moved from theory to practice. People are no longer using hypothetical scenarios to paint a picture of what adaptation could look like in reality. There are now plenty of real-world examples for practitioners and investors to draw on, while those on the climate intelligence side have serious clients, doing serious adaptation work with their data and software. This is encouraging, as adaptation-heads can now monitor and evaluate the progress of these engagements and take these lessons to other organizations and potential clients.

Second, the adaptation sector remains fixated on ROI calculation. It remains an article of faith that this will win over a host of corporates and financial institutions that are flirting with adaptation investment, but are yet to commit. Notably, many climate intelligence vendors continue to make adaptation ROI identification their core value proposition.

Third — and this may be a peculiarity of ClimateTech Connect’s insurance-centric crowd — there seems to be a lot riding on the belief that the insurance-adaptation nexus will drive this market. Central to that belief is the idea that climate risk mitigation measures will nudge insurers into lowering premiums, creating a pricing signal to homeowners and communities that investing in adaptation has a direct, quantifiable payoff. The silent — and sometimes not-so-silent — promise of many start-ups featured at the conference was that their technologies could identify which adaptation measures made sense for a given property or area, and that insurers would reward those measures with cheaper coverage, essentially making the adaptation pay for itself.

While it’s certainly true that insurers are offering ‘resilience discounts’ on the margins, for specific perils in specific areas, whether the trend grows large enough to send a meaningful price signal is still an open question. There’s also a version of the gas-station rule that may apply to insurers: premiums climb fast and fall slow. Even if discounts do widen, it’s unclear they’d be large enough to make risk mitigation investments an obvious financial call. And in some markets, the bottleneck may not be price at all — it may be the availability of contractors and skilled laborers who can actually do the work.

My intuition is that new mechanisms for ‘rewarding’ adaptation beyond insurance are going to start making waves as it becomes clear there is a ceiling on what insurers are able (or willing) to do to nurture this market. Perhaps innovations in weather derivatives and prediction markets, or other new-fangled financial products, will be more in vogue in 2027.

At the very least, I expect the insurance-adaption nexus conventional wisdom to be stress-tested over the next 12 months, and subject to tougher scrutiny at next year’s ClimateTech Connect.

Louie Woodall
Editor, Climate Proof

European financial authorities are calling for a new natural catastrophe pool of up to €65bn (US$76bn) in size to close the continent's insurance protection gap.

A joint paper from the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and European Stability Mechanism (ESM) argues that cross-border pooling of catastrophes risks from floods, windstorms, hail, and earthquakes could reap diversification benefits that would be impossible for national schemes operating alone. Modeling shows that pooling across countries and hazards could reduce the amount of capital necessary to underwrite catastrophe risks by up to 67%.

Under the EIOPA-ESM proposal, an EU-wide pool could be stood up with €10bn (US$11.8bn) in seed capital, plus a loan backstop ranging from €10bn to €65bn. The mechanism would share the cost of insuring disasters with private reinsurers on a 50-50 basis, and kick in every time a 1-in-50-year disaster occurred per country. The aim would be to reduce the insurance protection gap across covered member states to 10%. 

The backstop works like an emergency credit line that pays for itself, modeled on the ESM’s existing resolution fund for financial calamities. Insurers would borrow from the fund at standard market rates and pay the money back over time, which would be cheaper than going to the market for loans on their own. Over time, the pool would build up enough reserves that the backstop should only be needed in the most severe disasters.

Right now, protection gaps across Europe range widely. The 2012 Ahr Valley floods in Germany and neighboring countries inflicted €51bn of economic damage, of which only €13bn was insured. The Valencia floods in Spain in 2024, meanwhile, caused €11bn in damages, of which less than half was insured. Across the EU, the highest protection gaps are in Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Portugal, Slovenia, and Romania

Wealthy nations are failing to meet adaptation finance commitments even as climate disasters intensify across the Global South, according to a DanChurchAid analysis released last week. The report finds wide disparities among developed countries. While Ireland and Denmark direct significant shares of their climate finance toward adaptation, Norway, Japan, and Italy earmark only limited portions. Though governments agreed at COP30 to triple adaptation finance by 2035, DanChurchAid warns this target is unreachable without immediate shifts in priorities. (DanChurchAid)

Developing countries face a worsening financing squeeze as global fragmentation undermines climate resilience investments, the UN warned Wednesday. Official development assistance dropped 6% in 2024 to US$214.6bn and fell another 23% in 2025, starving climate-vulnerable countries of much-needed finance. At the same time, poor countries have to contend with debt repayments that are at 20-year highs and an 11% decline in foreign direct investment. (United Nations)

The Network for Greening the Financial System released a three-part toolkit to help central banks and supervisors assess nature-related financial risks. The package includes information on identifying relevant sources of data on nature risks, a survey of scenario and modeling gaps, and a review of emerging supervisory practices – together with a framework for strengthening existing climate-nature risk oversight. (NGFS)

The African Development Bank Group approved a US$10.4mn grant to improve how Ghana plans, raises, and deploys public finance for climate-resilient economic growth. The financing will support expertise on mobilizing domestic tax revenue and strengthening financial management. It will also assist with building out the country’s next national development plan. (African Development Bank Group)

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has committed US$5.2mn to help Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi, develop a new model for low-carbon, climate-resilient urban growth. The five-year project, to be run by the UN Environment Programme and UN-Habitat, will test out green neighborhood infrastructure in Kamukunji — a dense district of more than 85,000 residents — targeting flood risk and ecosystem degradation along the Nairobi River corridor while tackling greenhouse gas emissions. The initiative is part of GEF's Sustainable Cities Integrated Program, which spans 50 cities across 20 countries. (UN Environment Programme)

California’s insurance system is fracturing under the weight of catastrophic wildfire, a state-mandated report warns, with no single mechanism capable of absorbing the losses alone.

“Enhancing California's Resiliency for Natural Catastrophes”, a report requested by California lawmakers last year, highlights current challenges preventing spiraling natural disaster costs from overwhelming state-supported safety nets and recommends potential paths to a more climate-resilient insurance system. 

The report explains that the FAIR Plan — the state’s insurer-of-last-resort — held just US$370mn in surplus when the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires hit, triggering more than six times that amount in net claims. The same disaster has likely exhausted the utility sector’s Wildfire Fund, which was designed to cover multiple catastrophic events.

Another monster wildfire on the scale of US$5bn–US$10bn in FAIR Plan losses would pull in millions of insurance policyholders not even located in fire-prone areas. Because of the way in which the FAIR Plan is set up, such a disaster would push insurers to charge all in-state policyholders US$300–US$630 each to cover the costs.

The report highlights major gaps in pro-climate-proofing financing solutions. For example, while California has around two millions homes in high-risk zones that need fire-hardening and defensible space mitigation, no dedicated funding mechanism exists at scale to support homeowners that want to make these changes. Full-bore home hardening can cost around US$45,000 per structure through the California Wildfire Mitigation Program.

As for policy proposals, the report highlights the possibility of eliminating insurance subrogation — the right for insurers to chase down an at-fault third party for reimbursement after paying a claim. It estimates this alone could cut the utility sector’s Wildfire Fund settlements costs by up to 40%. The report also proposes policies for incentivizing community-level resilience planning and implementation, and the creation of a state-backed reinsurance pool for insurers managing books of business concentrated in fire-prone areas.

California lawmakers are currently deliberating SB 894, a bill that would establish a California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program. This would offer financial assistance for home hardening and defensible space improvements.

India has withdrawn its bid to host COP33 in 2028, reversing a proposal floated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi three years ago. The decision was communicated to the UN climate secretariat earlier this month. Climate Home News, which first reported the withdrawal, cited a letter from an Indian official to the Asia-Pacific Group chair referencing a “review of its commitments” as a reason why the bid was retracted. A new host for the 2028 summit has yet to be identified. (Climate Home News)

China launched its first agricultural climate survey in more than 40 years. The four-year effort, led by the China Meteorological Administration, will inform an update of climate maps for cropping systems, livestock, fisheries, and facility agriculture nationwide. The previous survey, completed in 1985, still underpins much of the country’s agricultural layout. Results from the new edition will shape crop distribution, disaster preparedness, and resilience planning under China’s 2022–2035 climate adaptation strategy. (Dialogue Earth)

Framing biodiversity loss as a national security threat could hinder effective policy responses, a new study in PLOS Climate warns. Researchers from the UK and India found that tying nature and climate issues with security narratives tends to lead to political retrenchment rather than action, a pattern already documented in climate policy. (PLOS Climate)

The Lancet Commission has launched a new 26-member Commission on Sea-Level Rise, Health and Justice, backed by the World Health Organization. The commission will develop policy recommendations on the health risks of rising seas — an area no major scientific body has systematically examined through a health lens. The WHO projects up to 410 million people could live below high-tide levels by 2100, facing displacement, waterborne disease, and food insecurity. The commissions is co-chaired by Christiana Figueres, the former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Eco-Business)

Xoople, the Spanish-government backed Earth Observation (EO) start-up, has closed a US$130mn Series B round and commenced commercial operations after seven years in stealth mode.

The company’s backers include Spain’s CDTI, a public entity under the Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities, together with private funds Nazca Capital, MCH, Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst.

The latest raise brings Xoople’s total funding to date to US$225mn, making it the most-funded company in its category, or so it claims. Its satellite constellation, which will be co-developed with L3Harris Technologies, is designed to deliver precise EO data optimized for AI systems to ingest. 

Xoople’s planned applications span insurance risk modeling, disaster response, urban infrastructure resilience, and supply chain monitoring — use cases directly relevant to climate adaptation workflows. Government agencies and Fortune 500 firms are already in private preview.

UK-based sustainability consultancy SLR has acquired Planetrics, the climate scenario modeling platform formerly owned by McKinsey, and ClimSystems, a physical climate intelligence provider. The tie-ups strengthen SLR’s ability to translate physical hazard data and transition risk scenarios into asset-level financial metrics — outputs increasingly required for regulatory stress tests and climate-related financial disclosures. (SLR)

Satellites on Fire, a Buenos Aires-based wildfire detection start-up, has raised US$2.7mn in seed funding led by Dalus Capital and a dozen co-investors. Founded in 2020, the company uses AI and data from more than eight satellites alongside ground-based cameras to detect ignitions within minutes. The funding will support operational expansion and product development. (Finsmes)

Spire Global has expanded its agriculture intelligence platform to combine satellite-derived soil moisture data with AI-driven weather forecasts. The company says the system can detect crop stress up to a week before visible canopy damage appears. (Spire Global)

Subsurface conditions and hydrologic accumulation drive stream connectivity and flow intermittency in urban river networks (Communications Earth & Environment)

Wildfire risk for species under climate change (Nature Climate Change)

Increasing landslide susceptibility and intensity under climate change for Aotearoa New Zealand (Scientific Reports)

Compound hot-dry extremes amplify disproportionate climate risks for low-income nations (Geophysical Research Letters)

Estimating the impacts of recurrent and expanding coastal flooding on septic systems in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay (Climatic Change)Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor