Bridging the Climate Data Divide: Turning Adaptation into an Investment
A blog by Alison Filler and Kelley Rowe, Climate Technical Expert and Frontier Tech Coach
The climate data divide is one of the biggest obstacles to adaptation and resilience across the Global South. Without localised, real-time data, governments, businesses, and communities are flying blind in the face of climate disasters.
We believe climate intelligence is the missing link - one that can transform adaptation from a cost burden into an investable opportunity. By combining frontier technology, catalytic funding, and structured investment models, we can close the data gap and unlock new streams of capital to build resilience at scale.
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A photo from our Climate Scenarios in Nepal pilot. Credit: Youth Innovation Lab
The Climate Data Divide: An unsolved $trillion problem
Imagine a cyclone is barreling for Mozambique. We know it’s strong, but we don’t know exactly where it will hit - or which districts will be submerged by flooding and landslides. Warnings go out, but they are generic, leaving communities gravely unprepared and scrambling to react.
This isn’t a one-off. It’s a pattern. Year after year, extreme weather devastates economies across the world, and especially in the Global South.
And here’s the crux - we have the technology to predict these disasters, but it is not reaching the places where it is needed most.
Take weather radar stations. In 2023, the United States and European Union operated 636 stations for 1.1 billion people. Africa, home to 1.2 billion, had just 37. The result? Entire regions are flying blind in the face of climate threats.
And the cost? Staggering.
In 2019, back-to-back Cyclones Idai and Kenneth ravaged Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, displacing millions, wiping out livelihoods, claiming thousands of lives, and inflicting over $3 billion in economic losses.
These disasters weren’t unpredictable - they were unprepared for. The climate data gap left governments and communities without the tools to act in time.
According to the Early Warnings for All Initiative and Global Commission on Adaptation:
Just ‘24 hours’ advance notice can reduce losses by up to 30%
Investments in Early Warning Systems (EWS) can yield 3x to 20x in economic savings annually
We have the technology to track storms and model their impacts - now we need to bring them to where they are needed most. By unlocking and delivering this critical data, we can strengthen preparedness and response to climate disasters and prevent their worst impacts.
Aerial view of Sofala province, Mozambique. Cyclones Idai and Kenneth represented the 2nd worse natural disaster on record in the southern hemisphere, resulting in 1,500+ deaths, 3 million people impacted with homes and livelihoods lost, a massive cholera outbreak, and $3.3 billion in economic losses. Image source: World Vision | 2019 Cyclone Idai.
Flipping the script: Adaptation as an Investment, not a cost
What if we could shift our perspective?
Instead of seeing climate adaptation as an inevitable cost, what if we saw it as an investment opportunity?
Closing the climate data divide isn’t just about saving lives and reducing losses - it’s about unlocking economic value. Climate intelligence is an asset that can power new industries, reduce financial losses, and drive economic growth across emerging markets.
At the heart of this transformation lies the need for two types of data:
📜 Historical data - crucial for understanding long-term climate trends and modeling future climate scenarios; and
📈 Real-time, localised data - vital for coordinating preparation, emergency response, and recovery efforts.
Together, these datasets are the foundation for a new adaptation economy.
Frontier Technology: The Key to Closing the Data Gap
So, how do we close the climate data divide?
Closing the climate data divide requires leveraging advanced technologies that provide real-time, actionable insights - bridging the gap between climate risks and response. Here's how frontier tech is making a difference:
🤖 AI, Machine Learning & predictive analytics - Machine learning algorithms analyse complex datasets to predict extreme weather events and assess climate risks.
The Fire Early Warning System in Pakistan accomplishes this by employing AI and live camera feeds to identify wildfire risks and onsets early, enabling proactive measures and earlier fire response.
🛰️ Earth observation imagery powered by satellite technology - High-resolution satellite imagery improves flood and drought modelling, informing everything from early warning systems to urban resilience planning - transforming our ability to gather and analyse data.
🌐 IoT (Internet of Things) - Deploying low-cost sensor networks enables continuous monitoring of environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity, and air quality.
For instance, the Climate Change Scenarios pilot in Nepal utilises sensor, geospatial and risk data to inform climate impact models and local adaptation strategies.
Recent advances in these next-gen technologies are driving down costs, whilst improving real-time, localised data collection solutions - allowing for faster, more effective responses to climate events. In addition, advances in AI-powered models are helping to fill historical data gaps, with inferential modelling from similar geographies.
But technology alone isn’t enough.
Data must be accessible, interoperable, and actionable to drive change. Digital public infrastructure plays a crucial role ensuring climate data is open, usable, and effectively deployed. Investing in public platforms will make climate intelligence data freely available to all who need it most - including local governments, communities, citizens, businesses, and adaptation-focused investors - allowing adaptation efforts to scale.
By making climate data usable and investable, we can unlock both public and private sector financing, reducing risks and accelerating climate adaptation at scale.
From Public Services to Private Sector Investment
When climate data is available, accessible, and actionable, it doesn’t just strengthen public services - it opens the door for private sector investment. Governments can enhance early warning systems (EWS), disaster response, and infrastructure planning; but, critically, climate data also fuels commercial innovation for products and services that are key to fostering adaptation and resilience, creating investable opportunities across industries, such as, but not limited to:
Insurance – More accurate risk modeling enables scalable, affordable climate-linked policies.
Precision Agriculture – Real-time weather intelligence helps optimise farming decisions, improving yields and food security.
Transportation & Logistics – Better forecasting reduces supply chain disruptions and protects critical infrastructure.
Corporations are already investing in, partnering with, and acquiring startups that harness climate data to power these sectors. Some examples include:
Ignitia’s Weather Forecasting for Farmers solution – Based in Ghana, Ignitia developed hyper-local weather forecasting for smallholder farmers. It is scaling its services through major telecom networks, integrating climate intelligence into digital agriculture solutions. Ignitia has attracted private investment to fuel its expansion, highlighting the growing demand for precision forecasting in emerging markets.
Blue Marble Microinsurance for Coffee Value Chains - In Colombia, Blue Marble is working with Nespresso to provide parametric insurance to local coffee cooperatives. Satellite-powered climate data enables the team to determine when disruptions in rainfall may interrupt the growing season so they can provide quick payouts and protect farmers’ financial stability. The initiative has since scaled to Indonesia, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.
Pula’s Agricultural Climate Risk Insurance solution – Based in Kenya, Pula is pioneering data-driven agricultural insurance, working with governments, development banks and agribusiness to provide climate risk coverage for smallholder farmers. In Nigeria, Pula partnered with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Anchor Borrowers Programme to insure over 500 000 farmers, including members of National Cotton Association of Nigeria and Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria and NIRSAL MFB. British International Investment (BII) has also backed Pula as part of its multi-billion-dollar commitment to climate adaptation and resilience. By leveraging value chain financing, Pula has proven that adaptation services can overcome affordability barriers for hard to reach populations..
The business case is clear, but capital isn't flowing at scale.
The problem isn’t just availability of funds and technologies - it’s about de-risking investment, ensuring adaptation solutions align with commercial markets, and structuring finance models that enable public-to-private capital. This is how we break the funding trap.
Breaking the funding trap is crucial for unlocking investment in adaptation solutions.
A Path Forward: Turning Vision into Reality
Momentum is building. The Frontier Tech Hub is working with partners to explore a structured investment model that can bridge the climate data divide and unlock new sources of financing for adaptation, and we are:
Mapping high-potential tech solutions – from AI-powered risk modeling to IoT-driven, real-time data collection.
Scoping high-impact investment opportunities – targeting regions where better climate intelligence could unlock both public and private investment.
Building a strong coalition – partnering with research institutions, investors, and adaptation experts to test, de-risk, and validate new approaches.
Over time, this work will help define what a transitional funding pipeline could look like - one that moves from grants to private capital, ensuring that climate intelligence technologies don’t just get piloted, but scaled.
By aligning the goals of the public and private sectors, we aim to create a shared investment approach - one where adaptation isn’t just a necessity, but an opportunity to build resilience and economic growth.
Join us
We’re at a critical juncture in the fight against climate change, and we have a unique opportunity to change the narrative around adaptation.
Are you working on new approaches to scale private finance for adaptation and resilience?
Do you have insights on scaling private finance into resilience building?
Want to be part of a coalition shaping the next wave of adaptation finance?
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Publish date: 25/03/2025
