COP27 Adaptation Agenda Highlights Climate Adaptation Urgency

According to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, last year’s COP26 conference focused on keeping the 1.5°C alive; it is alive but in life support and dying.

To continue believing that the goal is still plausible is misleading and gives false hope, so it is vital that this year’s COP27, we should accept that all efforts to achieve the 1.5°C have failed. Accepting the reality will allow us to focus on climate action and call on fossil fuel companies and governments to take the lead (McGuire, 2022).

UN News’s “Developing countries at COP27 call for ‘climate justice’ in the form of adaptation and loss and damage funds” reports that on the second day of COP27, world leaders rallied together to demand concrete action on climate adaptation and the issue of loss and damage developed countries owe them.

“We are not asking for one at $100 billion. We’re not asking for $200 billion. We’re asking for a debt that is owed and must be paid. Pay the climate debt,” renowned Nigerian activities Nnimmo Basse demanded of world leaders (Developing countries, 2022).

Basse says that if countries can spend trillions of dollars on war, they can spend this money on resilience. 

Dina Saleh, the Regional Director of IFAD, explained that failure to help rural populations adapt could have dangerous consequences, leading to more extended poverty, migration, and conflict.

“This is why today we are calling on world leaders from developed nations to honour their pledge to provide the $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing nations and to channel half of that to have that amount to climate adaptation,” she says.

Sharm 3l-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda at COP27

To accelerate climate adaptation in the most vulnerable countries disproportionally impacted by the mounting risks and threats from climate change, the COP27 presidency launched the Sharm el-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda.

The Agenda consisted of 30 climate adaptation outcomes and actions around five impact systems: food and agriculture, water and nature, coastal and oceans, human settlements, and infrastructure, including enabling solutions for planning and finance by 2030.

The Agenda, the first comprehensive global adaptation-focused plan, aims to bolster the resilience of four billion people living in the most climate-vulnerable countries by the end of this decade.

COP27 hopes to rally the support of governments and non-government sectors.

During the event, UN climate change chief Simon Stiell reminded delegates that COP27 is about turning ambitions into results.

“Human needs must be at the heart of what we do… The mantra is implementation, implementation, implementation,” he added.

COP27 President Sameh Shoukry thanked the countries who have put forward their pledges for the loss and damage funds.

Germany announced a $170 million pledge, and Belgium € 2.5 million to give specifically to Mozambique, which suffered terrible losses last year from extreme rains.

Austria pledged to provide $50 million, and Scotland £7 million. British PM Rishi Sunak announces that his government will triple its adaptation finance by 2025.

New Zealand also pledged to give $20 million to developing countries for the loss and damage wrought by climate change (Cardwell, 2022).

To learn more, CLICK on this link ➔ Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda