reporter
Name Affiliation Title Ryosuke Takahashi Senior Research Officer, Planning Department
summary
Date: November 10, 2025
Organizer: Inter-American Development Bank
Venue (Pavilion Name)：Inter-American Development Bank Group Pavilion
speaker
Name Affiliation Title Kyosuke Inada Special Assignment for Sustainability Promotion, JICA Alfred Grunwald Climate Change Solutions Acting Division Chief, IDB Dr. Svenja Serminski Managing Director, Climate and Sustainability Marsh McLennan Aloisio Lopes Pereira de Mello Director General, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Brazil Edalmi Pinero Climate Change Officer, Belize
Background and Objectives
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group held an event to launch its latest report, Resilience Now: Closing the Adaptation Gap in Latin-America and the Caribbean. The event highlighted the diverse climate solutions that the IDB Group has implemented and discussed how they are addressing adaptation and resilience needs and goals.
Contents
Dr. Svenja Serminski opened the session with an explanation of the new report, which was followed by a panel discussion.
Mr. Edalmi Pinero of Belize said that adaptation is a top priority because the country is located in a hurricane-prone area with high annual disaster risk, and that the major challenges are a lack of funding, weak institutional structures, and a lack of human resources, also due to liquidity. In order to take advantage of climate funds, he said that transparent data and reporting systems are essential for obtaining adaptation funding.
Mr. Aloisio Lopes Pereira de Mello, Director General of Brazil’s Department of Climate Change, stated that the biggest hurdle is “changing the mindset” to make adaptation a national priority, and pointed out that although data development on climate risk is improving, it is difficult to develop investment plans due to capacity constraints in rural areas. He also pointed out the need for prioritization within the limited fiscal capacity of the country, and introduced the example of designating 600 areas as priority areas based on their vulnerability, and supporting the three areas of planning, capacity building, and access to finance.
Mr. Inada, JICA’s Special Advisor to the President, pointed out that adaptation funds have the following problems: (1) they are considered unlikely to generate income and investment is limited, (2) definitions and criteria are unclear and investment decisions are difficult, and (3) adaptation requires consideration of regional characteristics and is difficult to standardize. He also pointed out that (1) adaptation is limited, (2) definitions and criteria are unclear and investment decisions are difficult to make, and (3) adaptation needs to take into account regional characteristics and is difficult to standardize.
At the end of the event, Dr. Svenja Serminski concluded by noting that within the private sector, the role of large corporations and start-ups are different, and that a “Adaptation Economy” is now beginning to form, with a growing number of start-ups offering technologies and services for climate risk management. This is because adaptation is not a “cost. This is a growing trend to view adaptation as a “business” rather than a “cost,” and he concluded that it is important to create an investment environment in which these start-ups can grow.
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