A global goal on adaptation
One of the expected highlights of COP30 was a greater focus on adaptation to climate change, specifically through a new agreement on a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). The GGA is a rather unheralded outcome of the 2015 Paris Agreement. It aims to set guidelines and targets for adaptation, while also raising substantial financial resources to prepare economies and societies for a changing climate.
There has long been an academic and policy debate about whether a goal for adaptation should aspire to deep changes in societies – resilient development and gender equity, for instance – to overcome vulnerabilities that have a social basis (transformative adaptation) or be limited to more practical steps alone – such as early warning systems and flood protection in coastal areas. Debate and action have tended for a more pragmatic take, while agreeing that equity and justice are important principles.
This is not least because while the greatest impacts of climate change are being experienced in less developed countries (small island developing states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans for instance), they are not the historic greenhouse gas emitters which caused the problem. Politically, the Global Goal serves as a vehicle for addressing this global injustice, tied up also in the complex legacy of the debate about ‘loss and damage’.
Real progress on the GGA was not made until 2023 when a framework was agreed (the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience) with two main elements: an ambition to define goals for adaptation; and measures to mobilise finance, technology and capacity building.
The challenge of setting goals for adaptation
Setting goals for adaptation is not easy. While for emissions reduction (mitigation) it is, in principle, possible to define the goal using a single metric (tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted by a country or organisation), for adaptation you need to contend with a wide range of vulnerabilities and with context-specificity.
For instance, in London we may be most concerned about heatwaves in the low 30s°C affecting older people in care homes without air conditioning, while in Jacobabad (Pakistan, one of the hottest cities in the world) a more salient risk may be heatwaves in the mid 40s°C affecting younger outdoor workers – including pregnant women farm workers – would be a focus for concern. In both cases the goal of adaptation might be to reduce health risks and save lives but defining an acceptable risk and suitable interventions will end up in very different places. So, vulnerability and adaptation are context-specific.
This complexity plays out across each climate change impact category, spanning flood protection to drought-resilient farming. Often adaptation is concerned with adjusting current practices and systems, so disaggregating climate adaptation from normal practice can be hard. Continuing the example above, there are care homes in London with air conditioning. That seems like resilience but is it the best approach in all cases? Framing and value judgements affect what we view as vulnerability and adaptation.
The definition of an adaptation goal has reflected this complexity. Over 5,000 indicators of adaptation were proposed in a UN-run global consultation. These have been boiled down to 100 organised in 11 themes in the proposal going to Belém. It’s progress, but it doesn’t set the heart racing.
Financing adaptation
Economic analysis of the damage caused by climate change has grown increasingly robust over the last 20 years. The latest UN Adaptation Gap Report (AGR) 2025 calculates that global climate-related damages will be of the order of $310-365 billion a year by 2035. To stand still economically, the reasonable thing would be to invest that amount to avoid such damages. But research makes clear that there is a huge ‘adaptation gap’ globally, with significant under-investment in adaptation. The AGR argues that adaptation finance needs to grow by about 12 times from current levels.
Simply put, the politics of adaptation finance at COPs is that rich countries should provide funding to avoid and overcome climate-related damages in poorer countries. The moral case is that rich countries are the cause of the damage and poor countries do not have the adaptive capacity (money, technology, institutions) to respond to the threats. It is the grand bargain at the heart of the climate treaty, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992).
Bold statements of intent have been made before. At COP29 in Baku last year the Baku to Belém Roadmap aimed to mobilise $1.3 trillion for international climate finance flows by 2030, with adaptation accounting for about a quarter of that. Historically, adaptation has been a poor relation, amounting to just 3.5% of total climate finance in 2023. The UN also noted declines in international public finance as cuts in overseas development assistance make themselves felt. Multilateral banks also complain about the lack of fundable adaptation projects.
Prospects for progress
Greater attention for effective responses to climate change in global communities, sectors and regions is surely a positive and timely change. Although climate activists will continue to argue that the focus needs to be on preventing the climate crisis, climate change is a reality that we have not yet started to deal with seriously. And the adaptation gap seems to be growing.
But change that makes a real difference to vulnerable communities is likely to be slow. The underlying issues of great complexity, contested responsibility and declining funding for development assistance are getting in the way of a breakthrough. Tensions around these issues are more likely to grow than to shrink. For now, the best approach may be to concentrate on delivering tangible climate resilience initiatives that are making a real difference to vulnerable people’s lives.
(1) https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/