COP29 Must Act ‘Ambitiously’ on Adaptation Finance as Developing Countries Faced With ‘Enormous’ Funding Gap, UN Report Warns

An ever-increasing amount of money – currently estimated at about US$356 billion – is needed annually from now until 2030 to finance domestic adaptation to climate change, the UN environmental body said.

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Finance flows to enhance adaptation efforts are not remotely close to what is needed, particularly in climate-vulnerable developing countries, to keep up with the rapidly intensifying impacts of climate change, the UN environmental arm said on Thursday.

An increase of US$6 billion in funding from the developed world between 2021 and 2022, the largest year-on-year increase since the Paris Agreement, represents an “encouraging sign,” the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said last week. Yet the world is far off track on what is really needed, estimated at around $359 billion a year.

While it is true that the $28 billion in funding achieved in 2022 put the world closer to achieving the target set in the Glasgow Climate Pact of at least doubling adaptation finance to developing countries from 2019 levels by 2025, even achieving it would only close the current adaptation finance gap by about 5%, UNEP’s latest Adaptation Gap Report warned.

The growing financial needs to support climate adaptation are the result of the rapidly deteriorating global climate.

2024 is on track to be the hottest year in history after record summer temperatures globally, beating 2023. Human-made climate change, linked to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, is directly linked to more extreme, intense, and frequent extreme weather events, which are now wrecking havoc across all continents. The poor and vulnerable, including women and disadvantaged groups, are hit hardest.

Article 7.1 of the Paris Agreement introduced a Global Goal on Adaptation, a set of objectives and targets that aims to guide and measure the progress and effectiveness of climate adaptation at the global level, effectively recognizing adaptation as a key component of the global response to climate change along with mitigation and finance.

But according to Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director, the goal is in great danger unless we collectively step up action.

“People and the natural systems upon which our livelihoods depend are increasingly in danger from the hell and high water that climate change is bringing. The world must get serious about adaptation, now,” said Andersen.

171 countries currently have at least one national adaptation policy, strategy or plan in place, though the quality varies, and 26 fragile or conflict-affected states still have no such instrument in place, the report said.

More on the topic: Assessing the Progress on the Implementation of the Global Goal on Adaptation

Thursday’s report calls on nations to “dramatically” increase efforts to adapt to climate change, starting with a commitment to act ambitiously on adaptation finance at COP29, set to kick off on Monday in Baku, Azerbaijan.

One of the most hotly anticipated deliverables of COP29, dubbed the “finance COP,” is the development of a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance.

The goal to mobilize $100 billion annually by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change, set as long ago as 2009 and only met in 2022, was widely recognized as insufficient in response to the intensifying climate emergency. 

The NCQG intends to surpass that figure and align climate finance with the real needs of countries at the forefront of climate impacts. According to estimates, if this new goal is to adequately support the world’s transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient future, it needs to be in the trillions of dollars, not billions.

More on the topic: Climate Finance: What Can We Expect From COP29 and What Must Happen?