As the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) races towards closure, the summit billed as the ‘adaptation COP’ is on the brink of ending without a clear and credible commitment to adaptation finance. The language on adaptation finance in the Global Mutirão text remained weak and vague, with no binding obligations for developed countries.
The commitment made in 2021 during COP26 in Glasgow, to double funds for adaptation from $20 billion to $40 billion, is expiring this year, and the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) Group had called for clear milestones for post-2025 adaptation finance targets.
But the latest draft stops far short of that demand. Instead of anchoring finance to the Glasgow pledge and requiring developed countries to triple it, the text merely “calls for efforts” to triple adaptation finance compared to 2025 levels by 2030.
Further, it “urges” developed country Parties to increase the trajectory of their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation to developing country Parties.
Ahead of COP30, developing countries and LDCs had been asking for tripling of the Glasgow pledge, which set a clear target of $40 billion by 2025. Instead, the draft refers to tripling finance from 2025 levels, essentially shifting the baseline.
The 2025 levels are expected to be lower as adaptation funding has failed to kept pace, explains Maheen Khan, Senior Advisor, Adaptation Policy, WWF Netherlands. Khan is tracking the negotiations in Belem.
“With major donor countries implementing significant ODA (official development assistance) cuts in their budgets, we can expect that international finance will go further down,” said Khan.
Highlighting the growing finance gap in adaptation, the latest United Nations Environment Programme Adaptation Gap report had found that as per current trends, the Glasgow Climate Pact goal will not be met. It revealed that developing countries, including India, will need at least $310 billion every year by 2035 to adapt to climate change, nearly 12 times more than the current international public finance available.
This raises concerns that the financing crisis will only deepen in the years ahead even as countries are already struggling with escalating climate impacts in the form of extreme weather events which are threatening lives and livelihoods.
“We don’t even know what 2025 levels are. We won’t know that for two years. But there are already estimates that because of cuts in climate finance from previous years, that’s the baseline likely that we’re going to be working from. So again, this is like a false promise from developed countries,” Brandon Wu from Action Aid, USA, said while speaking to reporters in Belem on November 21.
Further, there is a disconnect between the ‘Mutirão’ text and the one on Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA).
While developing countries had pushed for adaptation finance to be anchored within the GGA decision, arguing that finance is essential for delivering any of the goal’s targets, the latest GGA draft contains no dedicated finance provision.
While the text on GGA adopted the reduced range of indicators, there was no mention of any financial commitments. Paragraph 8 of the GGA draft says, “Belém Adaptation Indicators do not create new financial obligations or commitments, nor liability and compensation”. “It’s a dangerous statement,” said Khan.
The draft contains a placeholder for adaptation finance goals. This separation, experts said, undermines the purpose of the GGA. That is because without a clear link to finance, it cannot set a meaningful global trajectory for adaptation action.
“There isn’t any qualitative guarantee of what it is,” said Shreeshan Venkatesh, Global Policy Lead at Climate Action Network.
“Developing countries need accessible, public finance that doesn’t add to their debt. Right now, there isn’t any obligatory kind of language that connects with the rest of the architecture of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement,” he said.
Experts stress that adaptation finance is crucial for supporting communities facing climate impacts, particularly in the context of a just transition. As the final texts are expected soon, negotiators from LDCs and developing countries and experts emphasise that robust adaptation finance is critical for achieving meaningful outcomes on adaptation action.
“We absolutely need adaptation finance this year. If there will be no strong adaptation finance language in the final text, we don’t know when the next opportunity will come,” said Khan.