The world’s most vulnerable nations are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis, as wealthy countries fail to deliver on their promises of financial support.
That was the grim reality that emerged from the COP28 summit in Dubai, where leaders agreed on a deal that was vague on how to mobilize the resources needed to help developing countries build resilience to the effects of rising temperatures, such as floods, droughts, storms, and sea-level rise.
“Adaptation is a life and death issue,” said Bangladesh’s climate envoy Saber Hossain Chowdhury. “We cannot compromise on adaptation. We cannot compromise on lives and livelihoods.”
But compromise was what many felt they had to do, as the final text of the agreement acknowledged the need to scale up adaptation finance, but did not specify any targets, timelines, or sources of funding.
According to a report by Reuters, the current goal of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing countries by 2020 has been missed, and a new target for 2025 is yet to be agreed upon.
Meanwhile, the annual financing gap for adaptation is estimated to be as high as $366 billion, according to a UN report released in November. The report also found that only 25% of the climate finance provided between 2017 and 2021 was allocated to adaptation, far below the 50-50 balance that was agreed upon in the Paris Agreement.
Some progress was made at COP28, as the US pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, the main multilateral channel for climate finance, and several other donors also increased their contributions.
However many felt that this was not enough to match the scale and urgency of the challenge.
“We’re at the point now where we should be addressing the climate crisis and the funding should be what it is,” said Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, one of the most climate-vulnerable cities in Africa.
She said that adaptation and mitigation, the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, should not be seen as separate issues, but as part of a holistic approach to tackling the climate crisis.
“We need to stop thinking that adaptation is a poor cousin of mitigation,” she said. “Adaptation is about survival. It’s about human dignity. It’s about social justice.”
She also called for more involvement of local governments and communities in the design and implementation of adaptation projects, as they are the ones who know the realities and needs of their people.
For many, the hope is that the momentum for adaptation finance will not fade away after COP28, but will continue to grow and translate into concrete action on the ground.
As the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his closing remarks, “The adaptation imperative must be at the top of the agenda in 2023 and beyond.”
