Photo: Christin Philipson / SEI.
Nella Canales is a Research Fellow in SEI’s International Climate Risk and Adaptation (ICRA) Team at SEI Headquarters in Sweden. Her research focuses on climate change adaptation, adaptation finance and the governance of climate risk, with a particular interest in how equity, responsibility and decision-making shape who is able to adapt and who bears the costs of climate impacts.
Nella’s work examines how adaptation can become more effective, equitable and transformative, including how climate finance is mobilized, allocated and delivered to the people and places most vulnerable to climate change. Her research on the adaptation finance gap has explored the scale and effectiveness of international adaptation finance, including whether finance reaches developing countries and local communities, and the barriers that prevent resources from translating into adaptation action. She has also contributed to the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report, including as a lead author of the adaptation finance chapter in the 2024 and 2025 reports.
A key strand of her research examines the equity of adaptation finance. Her recent work develops approaches for assessing whether adaptation finance reaches vulnerable and marginalized groups, how resources are used, and whether investments address the underlying causes of vulnerability. This work highlights the importance of moving beyond measuring financial allocations towards understanding adaptation outcomes, local access to resources, social protection, capabilities and structural change.
Nella also researches risk ownership and responsibility for transboundary climate risks. Her work examines how climate risks travel across borders and sectors through interconnected economies and global supply chains, and how responsibility for responding to those risks can be identified and shared among businesses, governments and other actors. This research connects adaptation with questions of governance, incentives, accountability and fairness, particularly where those exposed to climate risks are not necessarily the actors with the greatest capacity or responsibility to address them.
Her research is grounded in experience across diverse socio-political contexts in Latin America and East Africa. Before joining SEI, she worked on climate change adaptation in Peru with CARE International and on the clean development mechanism with the National Environmental Fund (FONAM). She has also held research positions at SEI Latin America in Colombia, where she established and led the Bioeconomy research line, and at the Overseas Development Institute in the UK, where she focused on the governance of climate finance for adaptation.
Nella has been a member of the Technical Team of the Climate Finance Group of Latin America and the Caribbean (GFLAC) since 2014, contributing to discussions on climate adaptation finance. She currently leads research and collaborations with academic and other partners on climate risk, adaptation, equity and the social and distributional implications of environmental and economic transitions.
Nella holds an MSc in Climate and Development from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the University of Sussex and a BSc in Economics from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.
