Financing climate resilience: Mobilizing resources and incentives to protect Boston from climate risks

This report looks at different financial mechanisms for climate resilience. It provides recommendations for the City of Boston and the region on how to pay for climate adaptation investments. This report examines various mechanisms for resilience finance and aligning incentives at multiple scales, from individual buildings to neighborhood projects to regional infrastructure. The report addresses equity and fairness concerns, and focuses on pre-disaster resilience investments rather than finance for post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. In the following sections, the report examines the growing need for resilience investments, describes various market failures, and discusses a series of mechanisms to improve resilience finance and market incentives. The report analyzes the return on investment from various resilience investments. Finally, the report offers some conclusions and recommendations.