The Higher Ground Foundation

How will the poorest adapt to climate change? Climate change will impact infrastructure, agricultural production, water resources, human health, and ecosystems with potentially devastating consequences to all these systems. Developing countries, while only responsible for a small fraction of historical greenhouse gas emissions, will be hurt the worst.We believe that reducing greenhouse emissions is no longer sufficient; we also need to help communities adapt to climate change by reducing their vulnerability to its harmful effects such as flooding, drought, or extreme weather. To encourage investment in climate adaptation projects, we’ve created the Vulnerability Reduction Credit, or VRCTM, an economic measure of the effects of such projects in reducing vulnerability. The VRC is a tradeable certificate that a project has met and is meeting its adaptation targets. VRCs are a means to quantifiably assess a project, based on sustained attention to maintaining climate resilience. As such they may be used for monitoring and evaluating projects, prioritizing investments, and could be purchased by parties interested in securing verifiable reductions in human vulnerability. Depending on how much the climate changes, adaptation needs will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars annually and will continue to rise. To help get the adaptation process rolling, we are seeking partners for developing VRC projects; in particular, we are seeking to work with organizations whose bottom lines and enterprise models are most immediately and apparently affected by climate change. We look forward to hearing your feedback and comments at info@thehighergroundfoundation.org