While COP31 places adaptation, resilience, and climate finance at the center of international negotiations, the Dominican Republic faces risks that permeate its territory, water resources, health infrastructure, and the living conditions of its population
SANTO DOMINGO. – Although the Dominican Republic has new commitments and adaptation plans, official documents identify financial limitations, inequalities in access to basic services, and pending tasks to strengthen its response capacity.
Climate vulnerability doesn't begin when a hurricane makes landfall, nor does it end when floodwaters recede. It also manifests itself in households with unreliable access to water, communities settled in exposed areas, and healthcare facilities that must maintain services during an emergency.
The country faces threats that go beyond hurricanes. Its most recent Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0), submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, identifies prolonged droughts, urban flooding, coastal erosion, and high temperatures as priority risks.
These phenomena affect infrastructure, ecosystems, food security, and livelihoods. Their consequences, however, are not distributed equally: economic and social conditions largely determine each household's capacity to respond and recover.
In this context, the 31st Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP31) will take place from November 9 to 20 in Antalya, Turkey. The international agenda includes adaptation, climate finance, the energy transition, and the implementation of solutions. For the Dominican Republic, the discussion provides a framework to examine not only its commitments but also the resources and capacities available to fulfill them.
An exposed territory and vulnerable homes
NDC 3.0 acknowledges the country's vulnerability, due to its island status and geographic location, to extreme hydrometeorological events. Among the measures it includes are strengthening sanitation infrastructure in tourist areas, promoting resilient urban regeneration, managing watersheds, and restoring marine and coastal ecosystems.
Territorial exposure is intertwined with the socioeconomic conditions of the population. Communities near rivers and ravines, settlements in flood-prone areas, and rural households that depend directly on natural resources face distinct risks. Families with vulnerable housing, irregular access to water, and limited economic resources also have different recovery prospects.
The Climate Shock Vulnerability Index (IVACC), developed by the Single Beneficiary System (SIUBEN) with technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), allows us to observe this relationship between household conditions and their exposure to tropical storms, droughts and floods.
The results, based on the third Socioeconomic Household Survey of SIUBEN, carried out in 2018, identified 525,407 households with a high vulnerability index, equivalent to 25.1% of the households registered in the priority areas of poverty.
Among the provinces with the highest proportions were El Seibo, with 47%; Azua, with 46%; and Hermanas Mirabal, with 43%. The Cibao Nordeste and El Valle planning regions registered proportions of 39% and 38.4%, respectively.
These figures do not represent all Dominican households, nor do they constitute an updated measurement for 2026. They correspond to the population registered in that survey. Their value lies in showing how poverty and living conditions affect the capacity to cope with climate shocks.
Water and sanitation: gaps between households
Water availability and sanitation services are fundamental components of adaptation. Droughts and altered rainfall patterns can compromise water supply, while floods and contamination of water sources pose additional health risks.
Fascicle II of the X National Population and Housing Census 2022, published by the National Statistics Office (ONE) in May 2026, offers an overview of the conditions of access to these services.
According to the document, 62.7% of households receive water for domestic use from the aqueduct inside their homes. This proportion reaches 69.8% in urban areas and drops to 44% in rural areas.
The differences also appear in sanitation. 2.8% of households reported not having sanitation services, a proportion that rises to 6.4% in rural areas, compared to 1.4% in urban areas.
Among households with access to sanitation services, 68.6% use septic tanks and 25.2% are connected to a public network or sewer system. In rural areas, connection to public networks represents only 5.9%.
The census also records that 84.3% of households use bottled water for drinking, a fact that should be distinguished from the source of supply for domestic use.
These indicators do not directly measure climate vulnerability or determine the continuity or potability of the water supplied, but they describe gaps in access to basic services that can affect the ability of households to cope with periods of scarcity, flooding, and pollution.
Health in the face of the effects of climate
Rising temperatures and variations in rainfall can alter the incidence of vector-borne diseases, affect the availability of safe water, and compromise the continuity of health services during emergencies, revealing that climate change also poses a challenge to public health.
In the Dominican Republic, dengue fever offers an example of the relationship between climatic conditions and epidemiological surveillance. On November 4, 2026, the WHO Special Programme for Research and Training on Tropical Diseases published a Dominican experience with the EWARS-csd system, which combines epidemiological records with rainfall, temperature, and humidity data to anticipate outbreak risks up to 12 weeks in advance.
The tool operates in nine high-risk provinces and reaches approximately 1.88 million people, coverage that encompasses less than a third of the 32 provinces. A network of 82 health officials receives its weekly reports, and the WHO assessment, as of August 7, 2026, identified active warning signs in six of the nine participating provinces.
The country also has the National Health and Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2030, developed by the Ministry of Public Health with technical assistance from PAHO and WHO. The document outlines plans to strengthen epidemiological surveillance, incorporate climate information into health planning, and adapt hospital infrastructure.
Among its pending goals are creating an integrated climate and health information system by 2028 and developing a health sector vulnerability atlas by 2030. It also plans to expand hospital safety assessments to second- and third-level facilities.
The financing challenge
The health plan itself acknowledges a major limitation: the Dominican Republic still does not have a specific financing strategy to manage disaster risks associated with extreme impacts of climate change.
According to Chapter 10, the country relies primarily on post-emergency mechanisms, such as reallocation of the state budget, credit, and humanitarian aid. The document warns that available preventative instruments may prove insufficient in the face of large-scale disasters and that many adaptation measures exceed national financial capacity and require external funding.
The warning highlights that health preparedness depends not only on plans, protocols, and surveillance systems. It also requires resources to implement preventative measures, protect facilities, and ensure the continuity of services in the event of an emergency.
WHO: Prevention also saves lives
On the eve of COP31, the WHO published the report Global benefits and costs of prioritized actions on climate change and health, which estimates the health, environmental and economic benefits of scaling up six climate and health-related interventions.
According to their projections, implementing these measures globally could prevent approximately 1.6 million deaths each year and generate US$3.9 trillion in economic benefits, in addition to US$5.4 trillion in annual tax benefits.
Interventions include health alert systems for heat waves, climate-resilient drinking water, basic sanitation, hygiene and handwashing facilities, cleaner fuels and cooking technologies, and efficient fossil fuel pricing policies.
The combined application could also prevent around 17 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. The WHO estimates that, in five of the six interventions evaluated through cost-benefit analysis, every dollar invested would yield approximately US$24 in benefits.
The figures correspond to global expansion scenarios and do not constitute guaranteed results or specific estimates for the Dominican Republic. Their relevance to the country lies in the fact that several of the measures coincide with problems documented in households and in their national adaptation instruments: water, sanitation, health surveillance, and protection against extreme temperatures.
Commitments and the cost of fulfilling them
The Dominican Republic's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 3.0, presented in June 2026, establishes the country's climate goals for the coming years. The document commits the country to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by 2030 and 32% by 2035, compared to the business-as-usual scenario.
Of the projected reduction by 2030, 8.5% corresponds to an unconditional commitment, while the remaining 19.5% depends on external financing, technology transfer, capacity building, and international cooperation. The investments required for mitigation actions are estimated at approximately US$11.468 billion.
In terms of adaptation, the contribution includes 41 measures and 155 targets distributed across seven priority sectors, with an estimated investment of approximately US$12.251 billion. The document notes that this latter figure is a minimum estimate, as some measures could not be valued economically due to a lack of information, and others may require additional resources.
In total, the estimates for mitigation and adaptation exceed US$23.7 billion. These are not available funds or approved budget allocations, but rather estimated resources to implement the planned actions.
The budget and its contradictions
Budget execution offers another perspective on the relationship between climate commitments and public spending.
The Budget Execution Report January-December 2025, published by the General Directorate of Budget (DIGEPRES), records RD$158,845 million executed by the Central Government under the climate change classifier.
Of that amount, RD$49,420.6 million, equivalent to 31.1%, corresponded to expenditures with a positive impact, while RD$109,424.4 million, or 68.9%, registered a negative impact. Economic services represented 91.7% of the classified expenditures, and environmental protection, 7.6%.
The total figure does not mean that the State allocated RD$158,845 million exclusively to combating climate change. The classification identifies expenditures with both positive and negative effects on the climate, and its importance lies in showing that the budget includes actions related to adaptation and mitigation alongside activities that generate adverse climate impacts.
From plans to effective protection
COP31 will bring countries together around adaptation, financing, energy transition and the resilience of cities.
For the Dominican Republic, the discussion has a concrete dimension: the country has updated its climate commitments, has a health adaptation plan, and has tools to anticipate epidemiological risks.
However, their own documents identify financial limitations, goals that are still set for 2030, and early warning systems whose coverage does not extend to the entire territory. Census data also show differences between urban and rural households in access to water and sanitation.
The gap between commitments and effective protection cannot be measured solely by the number of approved plans or announced goals. It also requires examining available resources, the progress of measures, territorial coverage, and the capacity of institutions to maintain their services in the face of extreme events.
In a community with an unreliable water supply, a home located in a flood zone, or a hospital at risk of service interruptions, climate adaptation ceases to be merely a concept for international negotiation. It becomes a condition for protecting the health, livelihoods, and safety of the population.
Recommended readings:
- Climate change: Redefining risks and decisions on how to build in the Dominican Republic
- Climate change is putting the electricity system to the test; losses could reach up to 17% of GDP by 2050
- ADIE focuses on how to protect the Dominican electrical system against hurricanes and extreme weather events
