Despite some progress, global efforts to adapt to climate change remain insufficient given the rate of increase in impacts and risks due to climate change (floods, droughts, forest fires...), warns the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a new report published on Thursday 3 November, 3 days before the opening of the 27th edition of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27).
Entitled “Too Little, Too Slow - Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk”, the report assesses the gap between the needs and the opportunities for adaptation to climate change.
While it shows an increase (+5% compared to the previous year) in the number of COP parties with climate adaptation plans, strategies, laws and policies (bringing this proportion to at least 84%), it also points to a severe lack of funding to translate these plans and strategies into action.
According to UNEP, international financial flows for adaptation in developing countries are 5 to 10 times lower than estimated needs. The organisation estimates these needs at between $160 and $340 billion per year by 2030 and between $315 and $565 billion per year by 2050.
“The world is failing to protect people from the here-and-now impacts of the climate crisis”, regretted UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
The gap is widening, the UNEP also points out, deploring the slow rise in international financial flows compared to the rate of increase in climate impacts. According to donor country statements, developing country adaptation funding has reached $29 billion in 2020, an increase of only 4% compared to 2019.
Combined, financial flows for adaptation and mitigation in 2020 were at least $17 billion less than the $100 billion per year promised to developing countries.
Mr António Guterres therefore called on developed countries to significantly increase the quantity and quality of funding for adaptation needs, starting with their commitment to double adaptation support to $40 billion per year by 2025.
In his view, COP27 - to be held from 6 to 18 November in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt) - should be an opportunity for countries to present “a credible roadmap, with clear milestones, on how this assistance will be delivered, preferably as grants, not loans”.
The report also recommends that linkages between adaptation and mitigation measures should be emphasised from the outset of planning, financing and implementation, in particular through nature-based solutions such as mangrove planting and conservation, salt marsh restoration or peatland protection.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/3x1 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)