Despite pledges made at COP26 in Glasgow to double adaptation finance support to around $40 billion per year by 2025, public multilateral and bilateral adaptation finance flows to developing countries declined by 15 % to around $21 billion in 2021, said a U.N> agency report on Thursday.
Richer countries pledged in 2009 to provide $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer nations; therefore, mobilising funds are expected to be a key talking point in COP28 negotiations in Dubai at the end of November.
“Action to protect people and nature is more pressing than ever,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Yet as needs rise, action is stalling.”
The Adaptation Gap Report 2023 has been by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) just a few weeks before COP28, says the world is underprepared, under invested and lacking the necessary planning, leaving us all exposed.
The report warns that all the short comings are during a time of increase risk of climate change particularly for the most vulnerable.
“We really need ambitious adaptation action this decade, and if not, we will increase losses and damage,” said Georgia Savvidou, a researcher at Chalmers University of Technology and a co-author of the UNEP report.
According to the UNEP, every $1 billion spent on tackling coastal flooding, would help avoid $14 billion in economic damage.
“Mitigation is often more interesting for donors because the atmosphere is a global public good and also because investments in mitigation often pay off,” said Pieter Pauw of the Eindhoven University of Technology, another UNEP co-author.
UNEP estimated that developing countries required $215-$387 billion per year until 2030 to adapt to climate impacts, a figure expected to rise significantly by 2050.
“The numbers are not that big: if you compare the $100 billion to the money that the United States spends on its military, and that was spent on COVID or to save its banks, this is peanuts,” said Pauw.
