The recent IPCC report has made it clear that there is a narrowing window of opportunity for us to act on climate adaptation and resilience — and that it is an important one for us to seize. Historically, the world’s approach to climate action has been proscriptive and overly focused on the Global North telling the countries of the Global South how they must run their economies and energy systems. As more countries reckon with the tough challenges of transforming their economies to net zero, it’s time for us to reverse historic dynamics by localizing ownership of the energy transition.

"We must support the Global South in owning their energy transition," said Laetitia De Marez, director of RMI’s Climate Finance Access Network (CFAN). "There are not enough international consultants in the world to achieve meaningful change on a fly-in, fly-out basis. Transformation will only work if it’s locally owned and driven."

RMI’s two recently launched training programs, CFAN and the Energy Transition Academy (ETA), aim to flip the script by promoting community-led initiatives and growing in-country capacity. CFAN was established to help developing countries gain access to climate finance, and the ETA provides hands-on training to develop skilled energy workers tailored to meet their nation’s unique energy needs.

While a growing pool of funding is available to help countries meet their climate goals and build community resilience, obstructive systems and complex bureaucracy can make it difficult for some countries to access that money. CFAN’s adviser training program aims to change that by cultivating an in-country community of financial and project development expertise.

The first eight countries that requested a CFAN adviser are Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, nations that face the worst effects of climate change. CFAN prioritizes the hiring of national or regional advisers, who then receive specialized training in how to attract climate investments, use innovative financing instruments, develop bankable projects and improve project approval rates, all of which can ultimately increase climate finance flows into the countries.

RMI also recently launched the ETA fellowship program, providing six senior- to mid-level energy practitioners from Caribbean utilities with online training, hands-on project experience and support, and networking opportunities.

"We want to help our partners reach their climate targets by 2030. But it’s not our role to be the ones doing it. Our goal is to equip people with the tools they need to get the work done locally," said RMI’s Martyn Forde, who leads the ETA fellowship program.

Forde, originally from Barbados, said that he has seen a lot of development funding come into the Caribbean and local training is sometimes seen as outside of the process or an add on. "I’ve seen a lot of projects here where international consultants are hired to do the work, but local people are not brought in," he adds. "We must engage the many local experts already in the region and support them to achieve their climate resilience targets."

Read the full article about climate resilience by Laurie Guevara-Stone at GreenBiz.