This has been a historic year for climate disasters – leaving 1.2 billion people facing life-changing risks from climate change. As COP29 opened, global leaders brought more attention than ever to these devastating impacts. Yet by COP29’s conclusion, it was clear that there would be no substantial progress on adaptation.
With no adaptation finance sub-goal in the new climate finance goal, the Adaptation Fund missing its funding goal by over 50% for a second year in a row, and no progress on National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), vulnerable countries are left with uncertainty on how their resilience needs will be met. However, COP29 did lay out some processes that provide opportunities for higher ambition in 2025. What happened at COP29 and what action is needed on adaptation and resilience as we forge ahead?
The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG)
The final NCQG decision calls on developed countries to lead in mobilizing at least $300 billion and the scaling up of climate finance to developing countries from all sources to at least USD 1.3 trillion, annually by 2035. The decision recognizes the need to dramatically scale up adaptation finance, explicitly expressing an aim of achieving “a balance between adaptation and mitigation,” and highlighting the need to consider the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and its targets. However, it does not establish a subgoal on adaptation. The decision also fails to provide any guidance on how to scale up adaptation finance or to what levels.
The omission of an adaptation subgoal likely stems from trade-offs with mitigation and loss and damage, competing priorities within groups, and a switch of focus towards the main quantum and possible regional allocation floors in the last-ditch effort to save the deal. With the Glasgow Pact’s 2025 deadline to double adaptation finance from developed to developing countries approaching, there will be no north star to guide ambition on adaptation finance beyond the needs expressed by the Adaptation Gap Report.
But the decision does offer hope: a 2030 review and requests for the Azeri and Brazilian presidencies to produce a Baku to Belem Roadmap to the USD 1.3 Trillion. Both are key opportunities to develop further ambition for adaptation finance.
The Global Goal on Adaptation
On the UAE-Belem Work Programme on Indicators, a key part of the final GGA decision calls for experts to continue their work and provides guidance on refining and developing indicators to measure adaptation goals. This includes some relative success on Means of Implementation aiming to enhance adaptive capacity, reduce vulnerability, and build resilience.
The decision also calls for a yearly Baku High-Level Dialogue on Adaptation at each COP to bring attention to adaptation finance. In a huge step forward for adaptation efforts under the UNFCC, it established the Baku Adaptation Road Map. This focuses on advancing the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience in its totality, providing a permanent agenda item to discuss adaptation. With the proper leadership, these processes could also be leveraged to produce significant signals for scaled adaptation finance.
National Adaptation Plans
While they do not receive as much attention as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) are also due in 2025. NAPs are critical to identify and avert climate risks and estimate adaptation needs at the national level. Only 59 countries have submitted an adaptation plan so far.
Discussions around NAPs at COP29 revolved around the guidance and finance needed for countries to develop and implement such plans. Lack of progress on both fronts led to the agenda item being postponed to SB62 at Bonn in June 2025. This critically undermines the ability of developing countries to meet the deadline and be prepared for the growing impacts of climate change. However, with an outcome on NCQG now on the table, discussions on NAPs at SB62 will hopefully lead to substantial recommendations.
The path forward
While the future of global resilience remains uncertain after Baku, the processes outlined above need to provide pathways for enhancing the COP29 outcome and increasing preparedness in 2025:
- The Baku to Belem roadmap to 1.3 trillion USD in the NCQG should include a plan for scaling up grant-based adaptation finance, with a specific target informed by the needs outlined in the Adaptation Gap Report. It should strengthen the link between the NCQG and the GGA, and mandate a report to estimate the cost and pathway to achieving the goal and its targets.
- The Baku Adaptation Roadmap on the GGA should support the outcomes of the entire UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, as well as support and develop the linkage with the NCQG.
- The final outcome of the UAE-Belem Work Programme at COP30 should contain a robust set of quantitative and qualitative indicators, including of Means of Implementation, that incentivize finance flows for adaptation and contribute to the mainstreaming of adaptation in development portfolios.
Progress across these fronts will require significant enhanced political mobilization and action at the highest levels. Self-proclaimed adaptation finance champions must come together to drive these outcomes. This will provide confidence to developing countries that their resilience needs will be met, and their NAPs will be implemented – critical step to reducing their vulnerability, saving lives and livelihoods around the globe. Leaders cannot continue to delay action in preparing for climate impacts.
