The Business of Climate Change: Adaptation Finance in Vietnam and Bangladesh

Speaker: Kimberly Thomas, A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

The densely populated, low-lying river deltas of Vietnam and Bangladesh are acutely vulnerable to floods, cyclones, and sea level rise, hazards that have placed both countries among the top 20 states most threatened by the impacts of climate change. The widespread notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities” accounts for the disproportionate contribution industrialized states have made to climate change and compels them to mobilize finance to help developing countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh adapt to emerging hazards. However, several prominent public and private institutions within industrialized states have reconfigured climate hazards in Vietnam and Bangladesh as lucrative investment opportunities, thereby casting into question climate finance as a mechanism for administering climate justice.

Co-Sponsored by APAC and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

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