By 2035, developing nations will need more than $310 billion per year in dedicated funding to adapt to a planet increasingly disrupted by polluting fossil fuel emissions, the report states.
“Climate adaptation” refers to the ways in which countries respond to actual or expected climate change and its effects, to moderate the damage caused.
Examples include flood defenses such as embankments, improved drainage systems or elevation of roads and buildings. In 2023, vulnerable countries received around $26 billion.
‘Adaptation is a lifesaver’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who warned on Tuesday that humanity’s failure to limit man-made global warming to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels will have “devastating consequences”, said on Wednesday that the adaptation gap leaves the world’s most vulnerable people exposed to rising sea levels, deadly storms and scorching heat.
“Adaptation is not a cost, it is a lifeline,” declared the UN chief. “Closing the adaptation gap is the way to protect lives, achieve climate justice, and build a safer, more sustainable world. Let’s not waste another moment.”
Although much remains to be done, the report notes that visible progress is being made to close the gap.
For example, most countries have at least one national adaptation plan, and climate financing for new adaptation projects increased in 2024 (although the current financial landscape means future financing is at risk).
From Baku to Belém, at 1.3 billion dollars
The latest data on adaptation will help negotiations focused on tackling the climate crisis at the UN Annual Climate Conference.
This year’s event, COP30, will take place next month in Belém, Brazil, where increasing financing for developing countries will be high on the agenda.
At last year’s United Nations Climate Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan (COP29), a new goal was launched: the Baku to Belém Roadmap: $1.3 trillion for climate finance (from public and private sources) by 2035.
This is not only for adaptation, but also covers the transition towards economies that do not depend on fossil fuels for energy.
The authors of the Adaptation Gap report agree that the roadmap, if implemented, could make a big difference, but the devil is in the details.
They argue that funding should come from grants rather than loans, which would make it even more difficult for vulnerable countries to invest in adaptation.
Speaking at the report launch on Wednesday, Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP, called for a global push to increase financing for adaptation, from both public and private sources, without increasing the debt burden of vulnerable nations.
Investing now, he said, will prevent the cost of adaptation from increasing.
Climate inaction is claiming millions of lives every year.
Climate inaction costs “millions of lives”: WHO
Underscoring the urgency of adapting to the changing climate, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday that climate inaction costs millions of lives each year.
The findings are contained in Wednesday’s latest countdown from The Lancet on Health and Climate Change, which shows that continued overreliance on fossil fuels, coupled with failure to adapt to a warming world, is already taking a devastating toll on human health in all countries, rich and poor.
The rate of heat-related deaths, for example, has increased by 23 percent. since the 1990s, to an average of 546,000 deaths per year. Droughts and heat waves added 124 million people to the number of people facing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023, and heat exposure caused productivity losses equivalent to $1.09 trillion.
Despite the human and economic costs, governments spent $956 billion on net fossil fuel subsidies in 2023, more than triple the annual amount pledged to support climate-vulnerable countries: fifteen countries spent more on fossil fuel subsidies than on their entire national health budgets.
‘We have the solutions at hand’
“We already have the solutions at hand to avoid a climate catastrophe,” said Dr Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London. “Communities and local governments around the world are showing that progress is possible. From growing clean energy to adapting cities, actions are being taken that are generating real health benefits, but we must keep the momentum.”
Dr Romanello described the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels in favor of clean renewable energy and efficient energy use as the most powerful lever to curb climate change and reduce deaths, and estimated that a shift towards healthier, climate-friendly diets and more sustainable agricultural systems would greatly reduce pollution, greenhouse gases and deforestation, potentially saving more than ten million lives a year.