What is the status of adaptation negotiations in COP28? Wednesday was the last day for climate change negotiation and has not seen any visible progress in the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), which is critical for climate-vulnerable countries to protect millions of vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate change.
Recently, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the Adaptation Gap Report 2023. The report has highlighted the financial need for adaptation actions to address adverse effects on the ground. The assessment estimated the cost of adaptation for climate-vulnerable countries a range of USD 215-387 billion/year. However, total adaptation finance for addressing climate change is far from the estimated costs.
Climate-vulnerable countries received only US$ 21 billion in 2021 which is even 15% less than the previous year. The report categorically mentioned that the need for adaptation finance will be much greater if climate-vulnerable countries cannot address the impacts of climate change on an urgent and immediate basis.
The COP21 held in Paris ended with a milestone decision called the Paris Agreement. According to the Paris Agreement and decisions of the UNFCCC negotiations, adaptation finance must be enhanced and mobilised by developed countries to developing nations to address the adverse impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement highlighted the formulation of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Following that decision several assessments and discussions have been conducted on the climate-induced vulnerabilities and financial need for adaptation actions for climate-vulnerable countries. It has been decided in the previous COP26 that the UNFCCC process must finalise the Global Goal on Adaptation in COP28. The Global Goal on Adaptation with adequate finance, the specific timeline for actions to enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities.
Many developing countries including Bangladesh have prepared the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) within the UNFCCC process with the expectation that the COP28 will approve the GGA to engender adequate finance, technology, and knowledge for adaptation actions. Adaptation discussions are not progressing as expected to have the final decision on the approval of the GGA.
Negotiators from developing countries are frustrated due to the slow progress of the finalisation of the GGA. Developed country parties are shifting the goalpost and jumping from one issue to another issue for unnecessary time killing and perhaps deferring the decision to be taken from COP28 to the next COP. Developed Country parties should not blackout from their commitment to enhancing adaptation finance to meet the adaptation actions to address vulnerabilities.
The COP28 is negotiating the Global Stocktake adoption to ensure actions on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, and capacity building for addressing climate change. Without approval of the Global Stocktake in this COP, the whole world be disappointed and this COP28 will be marked as a failure. The reason is that the Global Stocktake was done by conducting a very intense assessment of all issues of climate change.
The global stocktake specifically recommended the next course of action including the GGA to tackle the adverse impacts of climate change and to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal of rising temperatures.
The impacts of climate change are hitting the vulnerable countries in an unprecedented way and millions of people are uprooted from their homelands and become climate refugees.
Any further delay in the implementation of adaptation measures not only increases the cost of future adaptation actions but also increases the number of vulnerable communities across the world. The global negotiation process should not follow the dirty path of diplomatic manoeuvring to avoid real actions to address climate change.
The COP28 has spent 12 days of negotiations and had enough discussions on the known issues of climate change and required actions. Time is running out and global leaders more specifically leaders of developed countries must act now to make their choice in this COP28 to make it a successful one.
The writer is a climate change and environment specialist and the executive director of Nature Conservation Management. He can be reached at [email protected]
