Tokyo Issues €300mn Resilience Bond, UK Told to Prepare for 2°C World, Adaptation Funds Back Arup Tech Spinout, and More

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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) issued an inaugural €300mn (US$350mn) resilience bond on October 16, the first certified using the Climate Bonds Resilient Taxonomy (CBRT).

The bond will be used to finance the Tokyo Resilience Project, the city’s plan to secure itself against floods, storms, earthquakes, and other disasters for the next 100 years. Eligible projects for the bond proceeds include river flood resilience measures, coastal defense reinforcements, and undergrounding utility infrastructure. 

As reported last week, the bonds align with the Climate Bonds Resilience Taxonomy, the brainchild of non-profit the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI). Released last year, the taxonomy aims to channel more institutional capital toward adaptation and resilience goals.

Sean Kidney, CEO at CBI, says the TMG bond was over seven times oversubscribed, with total investor orders topping €2bn (US$2.3bn). “It’s a sign of European investor appetite, but we’re [also] getting very clear signals that there's going to be very strong Japanese investor appetite, too,” he told Climate Proof.

Kidney adds that other cities may look at the Tokyo issuance and conclude that they, too, should invest in resilience — for their own creditworthiness as much as for protecting populations and infrastructure. “Tokyo’s bonds — the default rate — will be certainly improved by the physical steps they take to better manage the physical climate risk, but they'll also be improved by the social measures that help citizens be able to recover after a crisis quickly,” he explains.

The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) has launched the Infrastructure Resilience Development Fund (IRDF), securing a US$340mn first close backed by the International Finance Corporation and major insurers including AXA, Swiss Re, and Zurich. Managed by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, the fund will channel debt financing into small and mid-sized resilient infrastructure projects across emerging markets, targeting sectors including clean water, transport, energy, and transportation. In common with other resilience-focused funds, the IRDF combines public and private capital in a blended structure designed to fulfill the investment criteria of large insurers and institutional investors, which are typically constrained when it comes to investing in high credit-risk assets. (Insurance Development Forum)

Finance ministers from 35 countries have drafted a plan to scale global climate finance toward the ‘Baku to Belém Roadmap’, which aims to secure US$1.3trn a year for developing countries by 2035. The ‘Circle of Finance Ministers’ report calls for reforms to multilateral development banks and an overhaul of domestic investment frameworks to support this scale-up of capital, and for the creation of innovative financial solutions to mobilize private capital. It also insists on additional concessional finance to support mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage efforts. The report was released amidst pre-COP30 negotiations in Brasilia, where more than 70 countries agreed to push for “robust” discussion of adaptation issues at the upcoming Belém summit.  (COP30 Brazil)

US federal banking regulators have scrapped climate risk management principles for large banks, with the Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision arguing they imposed costly and confusing requirements without improving financial stability. In a statement, Michelle Bowman said the principles risked pushing banks to collect speculative long-term data and conduct open-ended scenario analyses, diverting attention from core risks like credit and liquidity. (Federal Reserve)

Africa’s economies are rapidly fortifying themselves against climate shocks, with 95% of GDP now shielded from climate risks in the continent’s most resilient nations, according to the Global Center on Adaptation’s (GCA) new Resilient Economies Index for Africa. The index, which spans 54 countries, finds an average of 87% of economic output is already climate-resilient, with Burundi, Kenya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Uganda the most climate-proofed to date. But the report warns that Africa’s progress risks stalling under mounting debt. The index shows that 62% of adaptation finance to the continent is loan-based, creating what the GCA calls a “debt wall” that limits further resilience investments. (Global Center on Adaptation)

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned that the world must triple annual investment in forests by 2030 — and increase it sixfold by 2050 — so they can continue to contribute to global climate resilience. In two new reports, the agency said that high-risk forests, which together encompass an area the size of the EU, help prevent US$81bn in disaster losses each year, as well as securing water, food, and livelihoods for tens of millions. Current forest funding, at US$84bn a year, falls far short of the US$300bn needed by 2030. Moreover, harmful agricultural subsidies — which lead to deforestation — amount to more than US$400bn annually. (UNEP)

The UK’s independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) has told the government to align its adaptation plans to a 2°C global warming scenario — and warned that a 4°C by 2100 world cannot be ruled out.

In an October 15 letter to Climate Adaptation Minister Emma Hardy, the CCC said it was “clear” that the UK has not adapted to the extreme weather and climate shocks of today — let alone those expected over the coming decades — and called for “adaptation objectives” to be fulfilled by 2050 at the latest. The Committee added that a framework for achieving these should be laid out in the UK’s next National Adaptation Programme, due in 2028, and should include interim targets for the 2030s.

Adaptation objectives should aim to support a future where climate-related health impacts are minimized, UK food security is preserved, and economic growth is shielded from the impacts of climate shocks, the CCC explained. The Committee plans to issue a ‘Well-Adapted UK’ report in 2026 to clarify the trade-offs involved with different levels of adaptation ambition. 

Emma Howard Boyd — Chair of the nonprofit ClientEarth’s Global Board, and Chair of the London Climate Resilience Review — said the CCC’s letter signals a “turning point” in the UK’s adaptation journey: “As long as we have insufficient adaptation plans, our resilience, from food to power, is at the mercy of an increasingly unpredictable climate. Without serious investment in adaptation, the question is not if citizens will demand accountability, but when,” she said.

The CCC also used the letter to reiterate the threats facing the UK in a 2°C world: a potential doubling of heatwave occurrences, more frequent droughts, 10-15% heavier peak rainfall, and accelerating sea level rise among them. 

Parties to the UNFCCC are squabbling over the next stages for negotiating and adopting a list of 100 indicators for measuring global progress on climate adaptation, according to experts. A pre-COP30 workshop on the Global Goal on Adaptation, covering the indicators workstream, revealed “a lack of clarity” among parties and disagreements over how the indicators should be operationalized and reported on in developing countries, says Imane Saidi, Diplomacy and Cooperation Researcher at the Imal Initiative for Climate and Development. African and Arab countries in particular raised concerns about the lack of context-specific indicators, the prescriptive nature of certain global indicators, and the challenges building local capacity to handle the reporting. One member of the technical expert group that drafted the 100 indicators said he thinks it “unlikely” that the list will survive in its current form amid COP30 negotiations next month. (Climate Proof)

European lawmakers voted to curtail two batches of sustainability laws — the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) — following heavy pressure from member states, industry groups, and other countries. Members of the EU Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs voted on October 13 to shrink the scope of CSRD only to firms with over 1,000 employees, while the CSDDD threshold jumps to companied with 5,000 employees and €1.5bn (US$1.8bn) in revenue. Key planks have also been stripped from the directives, including a civil liability accountability mechanism for the CSDDD. Negotiations on the overhaul between EU member states are taking place this week, with a final deal expected by year’s end. (Bloomberg)

New Zealand has published its first National Adaptation Framework to guard the country against escalating floods, storms, and other climate hazards. The plan centers on four pillars: risk and response information sharing, clarified roles and responsibilities, investment in risk reduction, and cost-sharing. The framework also mandates local adaptation plans in high-risk areas, with legislation in the works to formalize responsibilities. A major step in implementing the framework country-wide is the planned release of a National Flood Map, due in 2027, which will highlight current and future flood zones. (New Zealand Government)

New research finds that most US homeowners in flood-prone homes sell or rent their properties to others rather than take a federal buyout, shifting flood risk to new residents rather than removing it. The data from Rice University’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience shows that 14 out of 15 movers in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) buyout zones do not sell their property to the government, but to new owners through regular real estate transactions. This could undermine community resilience — as past data indicates that for every $1 spent on the buyout program, FEMA saves up to $6 in future disaster costs. (The Conversation)

California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) has pushed back its initial rulemaking for the state’s landmark climate disclosure laws, SB 253 and SB 261, to the first quarter of 2026, citing an overwhelming volume of public comments. The delay adds to uncertainty for thousands of companies that must still prepare to meet fast-approaching reporting deadlines — January 1, 2026, for climate-related financial risk disclosures (SB 261) and mid-July 2026 for Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas reporting (SB 253). CARB’s latest notice offers no new compliance timeline, leaving firms to interpret what it means to “do business” in California and to proceed under current deadlines. The agency is continuing to solicit stakeholder feedback through October 27 on its draft reporting template and guidance memo. (California Air Resources Board)

The World Health Organization has launched its first regional climate and health strategy for Asia and the Pacific, targeting one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions. Announced in Fiji, the 2025-2030 plan focuses on building climate-resilient health systems and promoting cleaner and safer urban and island environments, among other initiatives. (WHO)

San Francisco-based startup Class 3 Technologies has raised US$3.5mn in seed funding to launch Iris, a new software platform delivering highly detailed, building-specific climate risk assessments to large property holders and organizations.

The funding round was led by Powerhouse Ventures, with participation from Sustainable Future Ventures and Tailwind Futures. Spun out of global engineering firm Arup, Class 3 aims to bridge the gap between broad climate risk models and expensive engineering assessments. It is led by Ibbi Almufti, a near-20-year veteran of Arup and founder of its Risk and Resilience Team. Fellow Arup alumni Rebecca Birmingham is serving as Chief Operating Officer.

Class 3 says the Iris platform represents a step-up from traditional climate risk models in that it can simulate physical hazards and structural vulnerabilities down to the component level. This enables users to accurately quantify climate-driven risk and simulate the effects of resilience interventions on new and existing buildings.

“To measure resilience accurately we had to develop new damage and loss models built on first principles of engineering, down to the level of individual building components. With Iris, organizations can finally quantify building vulnerability and risk properly and simulate the benefits of resilience interventions to act decisively,” said Almufti. 

The company was incubated by Arup Ventures, and has already been deployed during its stealth phase by tech companies, asset managers, and insurers.

Climate X has announced a partnership with flood risk specialist Fathom to integrate its Global Flood model into Climate X’s Spectra and Adapt platforms. The collaboration aims to provide more detailed flood risk data and financial loss estimates at both portfolio and individual asset levels. Climate X’s platforms currently model 12 physical climate hazards and translate them into financial insights to support risk management and regulatory compliance. The integration of Fathom’s data is scheduled for completion by early 2026. (Climate X)

Wildfire startup Sonic Fire Tech has secured US$3.5mn in seed funding to commercialize its infrasound-based, waterless fire suppression systems which can prevent dangerous ignitions before flames erupt. Backed by Khosla Ventures, Third Sphere, and AirAngels, the firm is targeting 50 pilot deployments by early 2026 and aims to manufacture 500 units within a year. (Sonic Fire Tech)

Pakistan has launched its first hyperspectral satellite, a turning point in its efforts to use space technology for climate resilience and economic development. The satellite, HS-1, can detect subtle changes on the Earth’s surface, supporting precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, disaster management, and urban planning. Officials say it will strengthen management of natural resources and support infrastructure projects like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. (Al Jazerra)

Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts (Nature Climate Change)

Modern sea-level rise breaks 4,000-year stability in southeastern China (Nature)

Comprehensive portfolio of adaptation measures to safeguard against evolving flood risks in a changing climate (Communications Earth & Environment) 

Investigating the extent and quality of health-focused climate adaptation planning: Insights from Western Canadian cities (Environmental Science & Policy)

Drought intensity and duration interact to magnify losses in primary productivity (Science)

Artificial intelligence and climate change: the potential roles of foundation models (Environmental Sciences Europe)

Returns on resilience: Investing in adaptation to drive prosperity, growth and competitiveness (SystemIQ)

The forest-climate nexus: A fit-for-purpose framework for climate impact (Climate Policy Initiative)

Putting development first: Climate Change and the International Financial Architecture (Task Force on Climate, Development and the International Financial Architecture)

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor