COP30 delivered small steps on climate change adaptation

Last weekend, the UN climate conference COP30 in Belém, Brazil, concluded with slow progress on climate adaptation. Called the “Implementation COP”, intended to finally translate past pledges into action, negotiators made only small steps toward advancing global adaptation and resilience.

A key outcome on adaptation was the international agreement on a list of indicators to track progress on climate adaptation. Until now, there has been no agreed standard for countries to measure adaptation efforts, which has hindered effective policy development and the allocation of funds for building resilience to climate impacts. Measuring adaptation is far more complex than mitigation (e.g. avoided CO₂ emissions), which helps explain why an international agreement has taken so long.

Since Weather Impact’s mission is to support climate adaptation with a wide range of services, we welcome this development, as these indicators provide a universal basis for measuring and tracking progress on climate change adaptation.

This development has been years in the making. The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) was established under the 2015 Paris Agreement, a collective commitment aiming to “enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.” A framework to review overall progress was initiated only in 2022, and in 2023 in Dubai countries agreed to develop indicators for measuring this progress. Over the past years, experts refined an initial list of 10,000 potential indicators down to 100. Now, ten years after the Paris Agreement and after difficult negotiations at COP30, countries agreed on 59 indicators.

The indicators cover access to water and health services, resilience in food and agriculture, the protection of ecosystems and vulnerable communities, and the strength of climate information services, and more. Some examples include:

• Extent of implementation of extension services supporting adaptation in food and agriculture;
• Level of institutional arrangements for training on climate change adaptation, including the integration of local and Indigenous knowledge;
• Level of climate risk assessments conducted and the establishment and use of climate information services and early warning systems;
• Extent of implementation of National Adaptation Plans, including gender-responsive adaptation strategies.

However, we also recognize the urgent need for additional climate finance for the Global South to translate these commitments into action. While we welcome the decision to triple adaptation finance by 2035, countries at the frontline of the climate crisis are facing record-breaking heat, floods, and droughts right now, for whom support comes too late.

Still, COP30 delivered some other positive developments for adaptation. The National Adaptation Plan Implementation Alliance, launched by UNDP, will help move adaptation from plans on paper to real implementation. And the Resilient Agriculture Investment for Zero Land Degradation (RAIZ) initiative, supported by the FAO, CGIAR, and others, will mobilize funding to restore and sustainably manage farmland, helping strengthen climate resilience.

Weather Impact is committed to advancing climate resilience and will continue working with governments, NGOs, and other stakeholders to support progress toward the Global Goal on Adaptation.