As we just heard from the UN Secretary-General, the World Meteorological Organization and its partners have said that 2024 is likely to be the hottest year recorded. This means the 2023 record is going to stand for just one year. This is a clear sign that global temperatures are inexorably rising. Even now, when we are still under 1.5°C, the impacts are brutal. Deadly floods, the latest in Spain and Italy. Ferocious summer heat in India. The worst drought in one hundred years in Southern Africa. Extreme storms and more across the globe.
And we know that the impacts are predicted to get much worse. UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report, released just over a week ago, put the world on course for a temperature rise of 2.6-3.1°C this century. Nations must use next year’s updates to their nationally determined contributions to target bringing down 2030 and 2035 greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with 1.5°C and then urgently implement these pledges.
But people are already dying, homes and livelihoods are being destroyed, and nature is under assault. So, it is clear we must also adapt to the new climate reality. This is why UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2024: Come hell and high water calls on nations to dramatically increase efforts to adapt to climate change, starting with a commitment to act ambitiously on adaptation finance at the upcoming COP29 climate talks.
The enormous gap between adaptation finance needs and flows means that the world is failing to adapt enough. Yes, international public adaptation finance flows to developing countries increased from US$22 billion in 2021 to US$28 billion in 2022. This is progress towards commitments made through the Glasgow Climate Pact, which urged developed countries to at least double adaptation finance to developing countries from 2019 levels by 2025. However, even achieving this goal would only reduce the adaptation finance gap, which is estimated at US$187 - 359 billion per year, by about 5 per cent.
Nations must therefore adopt an ambitious new collective quantified goal for climate finance at COP29 in Azerbaijan and pursue innovative approaches to mobilizing additional financial resources. They must make adaptation financing more anticipatory, strategic and transformational. They must boost capacity-building and technology transfer to developing countries. They must include stronger adaptation components in the next round of nationally determined contributions.
The bottom line is that people, mainly the poor and vulnerable, are increasingly in danger from the consequences of climate change. There is simply no excuse for the world not to get serious about adaptation. We need well-financed and effective adaptation that incorporates fairness and equity to protect against these impacts – and we need it now.
