Climate adaptation includes preparing defenses against rising floods, shelters against intensifying cyclones and emergency plans to protect people during worsening heat waves and droughts. Guterres said only a small fraction of the required funding was provided by rich nations to protect vulnerable people. Cop27: the climate carnage we faced this year – video A report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said the worsening effects of the climate crisis will outpace the ability to provide protection without much more funding for adaptation, leading to a “knockout” in the next generations. The report found that 80% of countries had launched adaptation plans, but only a third had quantified targets with deadlines. Climate action takes three main forms: reducing emissions to limit impacts, adapting to impacts that cannot be avoided, and financing the rebuilding of communities affected by impacts to which they cannot adapt. A series of reports last week found that action to cut global carbon emissions to date has been “woefully inadequate”, while Guterres said on Thursday that rebuilding funds – known as “losses and damages” in UN talks – would be a critical issue at Cop27. climate summit starting next week. “The UNEP report makes clear that the world is failing to protect people from the here-and-now impacts of the climate crisis,” Guterres said. “We need a global increase in adaptation investment to save millions of lives from climate carnage. “Adaptation needs in the developing world are set to soar to $340 billion [£295bn] a year until 2030,” he said. “However, adaptation support today amounts to less than a tenth of that amount. The most vulnerable people and communities are paying the price and that is unacceptable.” Rich countries provided $29 billion in financing in 2020, the latest figures available, just 4 percent higher than in 2019. Developed countries pledged at Cop26 last year to increase this to $40 billion by 2025. The growing impact of the climate crisis was clear in 2022, including devastating floods in Pakistan and intense heat waves from the US to China. The effect of global warming in supercharging many extreme weather events is now strong, even with only a 1.1 C temperature increase to date, and some significant effects would not have occurred without human intervention in the climate. “Climate change is blow after blow to humanity, as we have seen throughout 2022,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director. “If we don’t want to spend the next few decades in emergency response mode, dealing with disaster after disaster, we need to get ahead of the game. The temperature ranges we’re currently looking at over the coming decades will turn the climate impacts we’re seeing now into knockout blows for generations to come.” The most important stories on the planet. Get all the week’s environmental news – the good, the bad and the must-haves Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Other global crises, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, cannot be used as excuses for inaction, he said. “We need to get serious about adapting to climate change, and we need to do it now.” In addition to more funding, Guterres said countries need much better data on climate risks and that early warning systems for extreme weather events must be in place around the world within five years. “The world must step up and protect people and communities from the immediate and ever-increasing risks of the climate emergency.” He added: “We also need to recognize that, in many places, it is too late to adapt. Cop27 must provide a clear and time-bound roadmap to fill the funding gap to address damage and loss. This will be a central test of success at Cop27.” Adaptation action planning must include indigenous and local communities, said Annamária Lehoczky of the conservation organization Fauna & Flora International. “Only then is it possible to be efficient, sustainable and fair. It is these communities that have the specialized, on-the-ground knowledge of their needs and are best able to develop transformative solutions that also address the underlying drivers of poverty, inequality, climate change and nature degradation.”
