Adaptation, Clean Energy, and Sustainable Landscapes
$476.8 million*
Minimum Requirement for American Leadership
Adaptation, clean energy and sustainable landscape bilateral assistance programs help economically vulnerable communities gain access to secure electricity, prepare for natural disasters, and protect threatened forests and farmlands.
Justification for Funding
- Clean energy programs support cleaner air and increase energy access and security in developing countries. By leveraging private sector and non-governmental investment, this fulfills Congress’ vision of lifting people out of poverty through access to electricity.
- Adaptation programs reduce the impact of severe weather and natural disasters on critical infrastructure, agricultural productivity, and public health. Enhancing developing countries’ ability to better prepare for disasters saves lives – and is vastly cheaper than responding to disasters once they have occurred.
- Tropical forests continue to be one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, but efforts funded in part by Congress are advancing conservation in these areas. Sustainable Landscapes programs incentivize developing forested countries to curb deforestation while addressing rural poverty and improving the way lands are managed and harvested.
Cost of Cuts Below $476.8 Million
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President and Congress Budget Comparison Congressional Budget President's Budget Request (Base + OCO) |
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- U.S. leadership is vital to gathering support of the rest of the world. Cuts in U.S. commitment could motivate other donor countries to follow suit. These programs leverage huge amounts of funding from other donor countries: One of the key Sustainable Landscapes programs, the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), saw U.S. funding leverage 39 times more funding from other donors, which would all be lost if funded below $476.79 million.
- Cutting adaptation funds also means that key U.S. allies will lose out on cutting-edge information that enables them to adapt to changing weather patterns and storm cycles.
$476.8 million
Opportunity to Catalyze American Leadership
Justification for Full Funding
- In many countries, these programs administered by USAID and others form the bedrock of our diplomatic relationships -- while protecting and strengthening key allies across the globe.
- Continued funding of these bipartisan programs will allow them to build on existing successes, and leverage new and additional dollars from other governments and the private sector.
- By 2050, 50 million more people – equivalent to the population of Spain – will be at risk of going hungry because of climate change.
- By 2050, there could be 25 million more malnourished children under the age of five compared to a world without climate change – that’s the equivalent of every child under the age of five in the U.S. and Canada combined.
Impact of Full Funding
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30% |
- Clean energy funds will allow the U.S. to continue the highly-successful, bipartisan Power Africa program, which is helping provide electrification infrastructure to hundreds of thousands of people.
- Sustainable Landscapes funding means that the U.S. can participate in the goals of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, and help achieve deforestation-free supply chains in commodities like palm oil, soy, beef, and paper and pulp.
- Adaptation funding will allow the U.S. to respond to evolving threats to least-developed countries, glacier-dependent nations, small-island developing nations, and other countries most prone to weather-related disasters.
*FY18 Senate-Approved Appropriation
For more information, please contact: Lindsey Doyle, ldoyle@interaction.org
