The doubling of international climate adaptation finance by 2025, first adopted as a commitment by developed countries during COP26 in Glasgow, is now a top-most priority under the Paris Agreement, including for sustaining confidence in the international climate regime itself. We are, unfortunately, off-track from the ambition of delivering a doubling in climate adaptation finance by 2025. All concerned countries were, therefore, urged to strengthen efforts and galvanize their commitments to at least double their individual provisions of climate adaptation finance by 2025. Delivery on this target would help to catalyze wide-spread implementation following the substantial efforts that vulnerable nations, especially in Africa and SIDS, have invested into developing national adaptation plans, strategies and implementation frameworks.

The importance of harmonizing development with nature and the human-induced, fast-changing climate was spotlighted. Top priority was put on efforts to reinforce the integration of climate risks and adaptation measures into all development initiatives and financing. Climate risks should be factored into, and climate resilience built into every single development finance institution, and at the project level, for example, into every project whether in agriculture, energy, sanitation or other sectoral domains. Nature-based solutions (NBS) should also be leveraged and prioritized in order to further enhance synergies between adaptation action and the protection and restoration of the natural environment

Results at-speed and at-scale were reflected on in implementing the world’s largest climate adaptation program, the Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP), where, since becoming operational in 2022, climate adaptation solutions have been mainstreamed into over $10 billion of development investments in Africa, across more than 35 countries, more than 50 major projects, and involving a coalition of some 50 regional knowledge and implementation partners. AAAP was on track but needed to maintain its focus on delivering on the program’s full $25 billion ambition by the end of 2025. Work was also called upon to prepare for a second higher ambition and enhanced second phase of the AAAP for the period 2026–2030. Key AAAP programs, such as on food security, connecting the solutions of CGIAR with IFIs, and the work under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility, both flagship initiatives, should continue to be scaled up. New linkages are to be forged between AAAP and the G7 “Adaptation Accelerator Hub” that itself aims to respond in urgency to the climate impacts in the most climate vulnerable countries and communities and to accelerate the implementation of and investment into climate change adaptation action.

Doubling down on the success of AAAP including its replication into other regions, building on the experience, for example, of Bangladesh, was considered. Front-and-center to this is the proposal for the creation of an entirely new adaptation acceleration program specifically for SIDS, including the launch of such a program by UNFCCC COP29 in November 2024. This proposed “SIDS Adaptation Acceleration Program” (SAAP) was strongly welcomed by SIDS leaders and partner countries alike, with the urgency of such a program, and the timeliness of its suggested launching, particularly highlighted. SAAP must be embedded with the specific priorities of SIDS, whereby direct access to enhanced levels of climate finance, coastal protection, the blue economy and tourism were highlighted as especially important sectors for SIDS. SAAP should also aim to support the translation of SIDS priorities, such as outlined in National Adaptation Plans, into implementation and to enhance the enabling environment for action.

Both African nations and SIDS are facing increasingly chronic debt distress and fiscal constraints alongside efforts to mobilize climate action and advance sustainable development. As vulnerable countries in Africa and the small island nations embark on additional investments in climate adaptation and climate action, ensuring debt sustainability and ensuring liquidity for responses in times of crisis is key. The IMF, the World Bank and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have already begun work to evolve the international financial system, including through the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility, by significantly broadening the scope of World Bank climate resilient debt clauses, through new crisis liquidity solutions, and recently with the launch of a joint “Bretton Woods at 80” initiative to develop a long-term view on the future of the Bretton Woods system. Building on the Bridgetown Initiative and the Paris Pact for People and Planet (4P), whose leaders also gathered alongside UNGA79, continued efforts to step-up and deliver a fit-for-the-future international financial system were emphasized.

Africa and SIDS are trailing other developing regions and groups in private sector mobilization for climate adaptation. Public funds and grant-based funding are especially crucial for climate adaptation, given the importance of mobilizing adaptation efforts among the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities, and the criticality of adaptation not adding further burdens to existing debt distress and crises. However, public funds alone cannot deliver the climate resilient transformation required during the present critical decade. Unlocking the full potential of the private sector is therefore a top priority for scaling climate adaptation in Africa and among SIDS. Further innovations in mobilizing adaptation finance include the removal of barriers to trade, enabling the free flow of adaptation goods and services, and of subsidies in areas such as agriculture, fisheries and water, that undermine market-based responses to climate risks.

We must ensure that beneficiaries are reached at the local, community level. Although small-scale food producers in vulnerable regions are responsible for over a third of the world’s food supply, just 0.8% of global climate finance currently reaches them (CPI, 2023). All adaptation efforts need to strive harder to bridge the delivery gap down to the local and community level. Effective climate adaptation must be informed, driven, and led by local contexts, populations, and priorities. In complement to national and regional planning efforts, the development of “People’s Adaptation Plans”, and the linking of these to investments by IFIs and other significant funders, are examples of efforts to be further scaled-up. 

*The September 2024 GCA Leaders’ Dialogues event was chaired by H.E. Ban Ki-moon, Chair of the GCA and 8th Secretary-General of the United Nations and Co-Chaired by H.E. Macky Sall, GCA Board Member and 4th President of the Republic of Senegal, and moderated by the GCA CEO, Prof. Patrick V. Verkooijen.
 
The leaders’ event was co-convened by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) with Barbados, Denmark, Kenya, Norway and Tanzania. Key event partners included the African Union Commission and the African Development Bank.
 
Under the theme of “Global Partnership for Doubling Down on Adaptation Action”, the event aimed to provide leadership direction to strategic forward strategic pathways to achieve the doubling of climate adaptation finance by COP30, and the parallel scaling of global climate adaptation action. Concerning Africa, it aimed to share experiences, challenges, opportunities and initiatives in mobilizing climate adaptation action across the continent at scale and to take stock of AAAP just over one year out from the foreseen 2025 conclusion of its first phase and kick-off the visioning process for AAAP 2.0 post-2025 delivery. Concerning small island developing states (SIDS), the event aimed to provide leadership guidance on the design and mobilization of a dedicated new SIDS International Financial Institutions (IFI) program on climate adaptation.
 
During the event, leaders and high-level delegates were also presented fact sheets and reports on the AAAP program, the proposed SAAP program for SIDS, and the findings of the GCA’s flagship State & Trends in Adaptation report series for 2023 and 2024.

The Global Center on Adaptation’s (GCA) flagship event during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opening in New York gathering leaders from Africa, the Asia-Pacific, and Caribbean alongside partner governments championing the climate adaptation action agenda. The GCA Leaders’ Dialogues at UNGA provide a dedicated platform for leading champions of the climate adaptation agenda to join forces to track progress in implementation, advocate for the importance of this agenda, advance new and existing initiatives, and build consensus around the most critical priorities moving forwards.

Founded in 2018, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) is an international organization that promotes adaptation to the impacts of climate change. It works to climate-proof development by brokering local to international knowledge and expertise, instigating policy reforms and shaping investments made by international financial institutions and the private sector. The goal is to bring climate adaptation to the forefront of the global fight against climate change and ensure that it remains prominent. The GCA operates from the largest floating office in the world, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and worldwide network of regional offices in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Beijing, China. The Center will open a new office in Nairobi, Kenya in 2025.