UNEP Report Calls for More Climate Adaptation Efforts

UNEP released its annual Adaptation Report 2022 days before the COP27 opened in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, on 6 November. The annual climate change summit ended on 18 November 2022.

The report urges for an increase in funding and implementation of climate adaptation actions to help poor and vulnerable countries adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change.

The report finds that countries are working harder to tackle climate crises through adaptation plans. More than eight out of ten counties have a national adaptation planning instrument.

At least 84% of all parties to the UNFCCC, up 5% from last year, have established adaptation plans, strategies, laws, and policies across agriculture, water, and ecosystems sectors, with many focused on disadvantaged and marginalised groups. But financing needs to catch up with these plans and strategies.

According to the report, there is a yawning gap to be filled with climate adaptation funding which is between USD 160 billion to 340 billion by 2030 and up to USD565 billion by 2050.

“Climate change is landing blow after blow upon humanity, as seen throughout 2022: most viscerally in the catastrophic floods that put much of Pakistan underwater”, the report points out.

Aside from reducing GHG emissions to avoid climate change’s worsening impacts, climate adaptation efforts also need to be boosted.

This year’s report, “Adaptation Gap Report: Too Little, Too Slow – Climate adaptation failure puts the world at risk”, says that adaptation globally in terms of planning, financing, and implementation is not keeping afoot with the growing risks from climate change.

With climate change’s intensifying impacts, the report highlights the importance of both climate mitigation and adaptation:

• The multiyear drought in the Horn of Africa, unprecedented flooding in South Asia and severe summer heat across the northern hemisphere point to mounting climate risks and catastrophic events at only 1.1°C warming above pre-industrial temperatures.
• If countries follow through with their pledges, the world will be on track to heat up to 2.4 to 2.6°C by 2100. However, current policies will lead to a rise of 2.8°C.
• The IPCC AR6 Working Group II report says that climate risk will intensify every tenth of a degree of warming.
• Climate adaptation alongside mitigation needs to be ramped up.
• But even the most ambitious climate adaptation won’t wholly address climate change impacts, so funding for loss and damages needs to be provided to the most affected and vulnerable countries and communities.

Read the complete report by clicking on the button below.

The video below gives more information.