Written by:
Karla Gutierrez
ITACA participated at several major climate and ocean forums across Europe, each addressing a different piece of the same puzzle: how can we build resilience in a rapidly changing world?
What we found was both inspiring and revealing: while solutions are growing more sophisticated, the conversations often remain fragmented. And yet, powerful insights emerge when we look across them.
Our tour
From June to September 2025, ITACA’s CEO Dr. Laura Canevari embarked on a strategic engagement across seven pivotal forums, representing Caribbean and Latin American perspectives in critical conversations shaping global climate action.
The journey began early June, at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva, where urgent calls to move from risk awareness to risk governance were made—suggesting we center resilience thinking in every aspect of development, from local communities to global finance.
The EIB Adaptation Days in Nice followed, with a very clear message: climate adaptation must be reframed as a strategic investment that creates business competitiveness—driven by resilient design, early project structuring, and the urgent need to mobilize private finance in the face of shrinking public funds.
Next, the Blue Economy Finance Forum in Monaco underscored that financing ocean health is no longer a moral imperative alone—but a smart, scalable investment strategy where aligning capital with community-led action, nature-based solutions, and innovative finance is essential to unlocking a resilient, regenerative blue future.
At the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, underscored that protecting the ocean requires bold global commitments, scaled finance, and science-based solutions—but lasting impact depends on empowering communities, building local capacity, and ensuring that the blue economy delivers both ecological and social value.
In Rimini, the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference highlighted that accelerating climate adaptation in Europe -and the world- requires stronger knowledge integration, the active engagement of knowledge brokers, and a transition toward more inclusive, user-centred (and empathy-led) approaches across science, policy, and practice.
Moving now to the UK in September, ITACA first attended the Accountable Adaptation Symposium at UCL, where scholars explored the complex politics of measuring adaptation success and discussed the recently released list of 100 indicators to support the Global Goal on Adaptation. Finally, Blue Finance 2025, held at London’s Royal Geographical Society, examined how to mobilize capital for ocean recovery at scale.
Each forum addressed different aspects of the same fundamental challenge: building resilience in our rapidly changing world.
Together, they offered a comprehensive view of where climate and ocean action stands, where critical gaps persist, and where the bridges still need to be built.
Moving Beyond Fragmented Discussions
In Geneva disaster response was the main theme. At Nice, ocean health took center stage. In Monaco, finance dominated the agenda, while in Rimini discussions focused on long-term climate planning. At UCL, researchers debated the politics of measuring adaptation success. In the Royal Geography Society, investors and philanthropists explored how to mobilize capital for ocean regeneration. Each of these spaces tackled urgent challenges, but in isolation.
This separation reflects what many coastal and vulnerable communities experience every day: storm preparation led by emergency teams, coral reef restoration by marine groups, development planning by local governments, and adaptation projects measured by distant metrics that may not capture the complexity of local realities. One crisis, yet multiple responses, often disconnected. Opportunities for synergies are missed. Institutional fatigue is what communities are left with.
The Universal Truths
Despite the different and somewhat siloed settings, a few key messages echoed across every conversation:
Communities must be at the center.
Again and again, we heard the same truth: solutions designed without communities active participation tend not to work. But true participation takes more than outreach, it takes time, local investment, and trust. Real engagement is slow, patient work. As Natalia Arango Director of Fondo Acción reminded us at UNOC: “Civil society can be a bridge but to be a bridge, you must be patient. It’s about permanence. About walking with communities, not ahead of them.”
Funding exists, but it struggles to reach people.
From global banks to climate investment groups, there is capital ready to be used. The challenge is getting it to the people and places doing the work – like coastal restoration teams or local warning systems. The infrastructure to move money exists; the connections to communities still fall short. As Diana Acconcia from the European Commission and Christoph Kühn from the European Investment Bank emphasized at EIB Adaptation Days: “We must urgently mobilize private finance to fill the gap… We need to transform adaptation plans into investment plans.”
Knowledge needs to be usable.
Science and data are not in short supply. What’s missing is the ability to translate that knowledge into action. As Colombian leader Karen Pérez put it at UNOC: “Coastal communities sometimes lack the information to raise environmental consciousness and to know how to act.” Meanwhile, Eoin Murray from Rebalance
Earth cautioned us at Blue Finance 2025 : “Don’t give finance an excuse for financial institutions to hold back whilst we wait for better science”, whist researchers at the Accountable Adaptation Symposium questioned whether we’re even measuring the right things, with Lisa Schipper asking provocatively: “Is it even adaptation we are trying to measure?”
The Separation Problem
One of the most striking gaps to emerge is not just the size of the financing shortfall, but the way it is divided between agendas that should be deeply connected.
On the climate side, estimates suggest that adaptation needs are already hundreds of billions annually ($187 to $359bn per year according to UNEP), with only a fraction being mobilized.
On the ocean side, the latest figures show an ocean protection gap of $14.6 billion per year—and even then, funds often stall before reaching the communities and ecosystems most at risk.
What is even more troubling is that these agendas are too often pursued in silos. Climate adaptation discussions take place in one room, while ocean protection is debated in another. The result? Financing that is diluted, metrics that miss local realities, and missed opportunities to create solutions that are greater than the sum of their parts.
For coastal communities, this fragmentation makes little sense. Protecting mangroves simultaneously strengthens fisheries, buffers storm surges, and sequesters carbon. Yet, when adaptation projects are evaluated through narrow lenses, or when investment bypasses local leaders, the outcome is inefficiency at best—and vulnerability at worst.
The same pattern appears elsewhere: between disaster risk reduction and long-term resilience planning, between measuring impact and enabling it, between mobilizing capital and ensuring it flows where it matters most. These are not separate challenges for those living on the frontlines. People experience them as one intertwined reality, and solutions—and finance—must do the same.
What We Took Away
After listening, learning, and reflecting across these forums, several big takeaways emerged:
- Disconnection has a cost. Addressing connected problems through separate sub-systems leads to waste and missed opportunities, especially for communities already stretched thin. When ocean health, climate adaptation, and disaster resilience are managed in silos, we lose the synergies that could make interventions more effective and efficient.
- Communities are not recipients, they’re leaders. Everyone agrees on this, but few systems are set up to support it. From Small Island Developing States calling for trust-based funding to coastal communities demanding investment rather than charity, the message was clear: people want to be empowered, not just consulted.
- The measurement challenge is real. As researchers at UCL noted, after 20 years, we still struggle to define adaptation success, let alone measure it. The “seduction of metrics” can create perverse incentives, while the lack of shared frameworks makes it difficult to track progress or direct investment effectively.
- Finance is moving, but slowly. Capital exists -trillions of it- but connecting that finance to frontline communities remains the critical challenge. The infrastructure to move money exists; the pathways to ensure it reaches those doing the work still fall short.
- Bridging the gaps is essential. Connecting the dots between finance, ocean governance, climate resilience, and community leadership isn’t just helpful; it’s how real solutions happen. The most promising innovations emerge at these intersections.
For ITACA, these experiences offered valuable insights into the global climate conversation. We walked away with a clearer sense of what’s working, what’s missing, and where the bridges still need to be built.
But most importantly, we were reminded that resilience doesn’t start in conference rooms. It starts in the communities that know their land, their waters, and their challenges and are ready to lead, if given the chance.
Sources
Event Documentation
Related posts
sign up our newsletter
ITACA Solutions is a technical services provider focused on implementing climate adaptation in coastal areas in the Caribbean. Sign up to our mailing list to receive our newsletter with updates about our work, publications, activities and events.