Kochi: Developing countries are underfinanced and underprepared to adapt to the impacts that climate change is causing, said the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Adaptation Gap Report, released on November 2.
The report provides an update on the global status and progress of adaptation measures aimed at addressing the impacts of climate change, with a specific focus on adaptation planning, financing, and implementation. It also highlights regions of urgent action.
It found that the adaptation finance gap is widening and now stands at between $194 billion and $366 billion per year.
Adaptation finance needs are 10 to 18 times as high as the current international public adaptation finance, which is at least 50% higher than the estimates released by the UNEP last year in a similar report.
While developing countries are ready and waiting to receive adaptation funds, experts and activists ask where it is, as they highlight the dire need for adaptation finance.
Adapting to climate change
India and other developing countries – many in the tropics – often bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change, ranging from scorching heatwaves to intense bouts of sudden rainfall. As the impacts become more frequent and intense, it is important that people are given the knowledge, means and money to adapt to these changes. That’s what climate change adaptation measures deal with.
The UNEP defines adaptation as “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects.”
Adaptation measures vary widely and are often context-specific. Setting up early warning systems to predict extreme weather events such as cyclones so that people can prepare for the storm is one example. Another is switching to drought-resistant crops, or investing in proper rain-water harvesting systems to tackle water shortages and groundwater depletion that are already occurring in many parts of India.
These adaptations require money, and developed nations have pledged to fund adaptation measures in developing countries, such as through the Global Adaptation Fund.
However, there are gaps in funding.
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Last year’s Adaptation Gap Report didn’t carry good news. Though the world is progressing in adapting to climate change, it’s just not enough to tackle the kind of climate impacts we’re witnessing, it said. It found that international adaptation finance flows to developing countries were five to ten times below estimated needs.
This year’s report brings worse news: the adaptation gap is widening, and drastically. The gap in adaptation finance now ranges between $194 to $366 billion per year, per the report. This is 10 to 18 times as high as the current international public adaptation finance flows, and per the report, over 50% higher than the previous estimated range.
Developing countries now also need higher funds for adaptation: the report estimates it to be “in a plausible central range” of $215 to $387 billion per year this decade.
Further, adaptation funds have slowed down since 2020, and adaptation planning and implementation are plateauing too, per the report.
“Gender equality and social inclusion are inadequately included in adaptation finance needs and flows,” the report also noted. “Bridging the adaptation finance gap requires more international, domestic and private finance, ideally a reform of the global financial architecture and better international cooperation,” it read.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, in his message on the report, said that we are in an “adaptation emergency”.
“We must act like it,” Guterres said. “And take steps to close the adaptation gap, now.”
The report has been released within less than a month of the 28th Conference of Parties (COP28), the UN’s climate change conference that is scheduled to take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. World leaders and government representatives will discuss and engage on crucial aspects of climate change at COP28, and adaptation funding is also one of the many on the agenda.
Activists and experts have highlighted the dire status of adaptation funding for developing countries.
“The widening gap in adaptation finance is a stark indicator of years of neglect, leaving countless vulnerable people exposed to escalating climate calamities,” Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, told Climate Trends, a consulting and capacity building initiative in the environment and climate change sector.
“Instead of providing finance to developing countries, affluent nations have exacerbated the climate crisis with their persistent investments in fossil fuels.”
“Developing countries stand ready, awaiting the necessary funds to safeguard their people against imminent climate disasters. Without timely adaptation, we are setting the stage for unimaginable loss of lives and livelihoods caused by relentless floods, raging wildfires, and surging seas,” Singh added.
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India and the adaptation gap
The 2023 Adaptation Gap Report “reaffirms” what countries from the Global South have been arguing for more than a decade now, that the “gap between increasing climate risks and implemented adaptation is widening”, said Chandni Singh, one of the lead authors of the chapter on adaptation implementation in this year’s report.
“This gap is not felt equally – it impacts the poorest and marginalised populations the most,” she wrote in an email to The Wire. “And certain countries face a wider gap – in the IPCC report we showed how countries in Africa and South and Central Asia see the widest adaptation gaps.”
“In India, climate change-induced disasters and losses and damages are growing,” she added.
“We have clear signals that these risks are being exacerbated by inadequate mitigation of greenhouse gases by high emitters. Further, finance for adapting to these escalating risks is a trickle…Building climate-resilient infrastructure, developing institutional capacities to prepare for complex risk management, and [enabling] technical innovations require money and our global financing mechanisms are failing to reach the most vulnerable.”
While the report highlights the inadequate progress on adaptation planning and implementation, it also calls for an increased focus on anticipatory, just, and effective adaptation action and support, Anjal Prakash, Clinical Associate Professor (Research) and Research Director, Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business, told Climate Trends.
This is particularly crucial for a country like India, which faces various climate risks, he added.
“The Adaptation Gap Report 2023 underscores the critical need for India to bolster its climate adaptation efforts and calls for more significant international support to bridge the adaptation finance gap. It is a wake-up call for all stakeholders to work together to ensure a more resilient and sustainable future for India and the world.”