What's at Stake for Climate Change Adaptation at COP 30?

With the scale and the severity of climate impacts escalating globally, the urgent need to prepare for and adapt to our changing climate is clearer than ever. Around the world, countries, scientists, and advocates are recognizing that tackling the climate crisis requires both cutting emissions and learning how to live in a rapidly warming world.

Investing in adaptation now will enable us to build resilient economies, safeguard lives and livelihoods, protect biodiversity and ecosystems, and build a future where communities flourish and no one is left behind.

So, what does this mean for COP 30 in Belém? Our experts explain the key areas where progress is needed on adaptation in Brazil.

Bridging the adaptation finance gaps

As climate change impacts communities, ecosystems, and economies globally, countries urgently need to accelerate the implementation of their adaptation priorities. Mobilizing adequate resources to meet these challenges is essential, yet insufficient finance remains one of the main barriers.

The UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report 2025 estimated that the global adaptation finance gap is somewhere between USD 284 billion and USD 339 billion per year for developing countries, while the Climate Policy Initiative reported that only 5% of total climate finance flows are directed toward adaptation. The result is a widening gap between what vulnerable countries require and what is currently available.

At COP 29, countries set a new collective quantified goal (NCQG) on climate finance that calls on all actors to work together to scale up climate financing to developing countries to at least USD 1.3 trillion per year by 2035. It also set a goal of mobilizing at least USD 300 billion per year by 2035 from a variety of sources. This year in Belém, the COP 29 and COP 30 presidencies are expected to present the outcome of the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T that will identify sets of actions and measures to scale up finance for climate action.

Given the persistent underfunding of adaptation, financing needs to be scaled up at a much faster pace. While the NCQG did not set a dedicated target for adaptation, some countries are calling for a renewal of the Glasgow goal of doubling the collective provision of adaptation finance between 2019 and this year, working toward a potential tripling from 2022 levels by 2030.

Overall, the share of climate finance that is dedicated to adaptation should be on par with mitigation to meet the growing needs of the most vulnerable countries.

Some countries, such as Canada, have begun including specific allocations for adaptation within their climate finance pledges—a good practice that should be continued.

But it’s not just about the numbers; the quality of adaptation finance also matters. It must reach those who need it the most, especially the least developed countries and Small Island Developing States. Financial instruments and delivery mechanisms should promote inclusive access, ensure that resources reach vulnerable communities, and facilitate gender-responsive, locally led adaptation that delivers measurable, sustained impacts.

Adaptation finance must also be delivered in forms that do not deepen developing countries’ debt burden, such as through grants and other concessional instruments, to avoid further exacerbating developing countries’ vulnerability to climate impacts and undermining long-term resilience.

COP 30 must deliver a clear pathway to scale up adaptation finance, anchored in the USD 1.3 trillion target. This means moving beyond fragmented pledges toward a coherent and actionable agenda that mobilizes sufficient, predictable, and accessible resources for adaptation from a diverse mix of sources, including international and domestic public finance, as well as the private sector.

Building the tools to track adaptation progress

One of the top priorities at COP 30 will be the final stretch of negotiations on a set of indicators to track global adaptation progress. Unlike mitigation, adaptation has no single global metric, which makes it harder to understand whether the world is becoming more resilient, who benefits from adaptation investments, and how effective adaptation actions really are.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Framework for Global Climate Resilience, adopted at COP 28 in Dubai, set a series of 2030 global adaptation targets to guide adaptation efforts and assess progress toward the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation. Now, negotiators are narrowing down a balanced, meaningful set of indicators that can be used to assess progress and understand what is and is not working.

Having a coherent, pragmatic approach to tracking progress will help the global community understand where we stand in terms of reaching the global goal on adaptation, learn from what works in each other’s countries, and inform decision-makers to adjust course when needed.

This is essential for informing the assessment of adaptation progress in the next global stocktake and ultimately improving the effectiveness of adaptation actions.

To fully operationalize the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, the indicators must be fit-for-purpose and feasible for countries to track through their national monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems for adaptation. The targets address both the process dimensions, through the iterative adaptation cycle, and key thematic areas for adaptation action. Identifying quality indicators for the adaptation cycle remains a challenge, but it is essential for an effective framework, recognizing that robust processes are needed to produce resilient outcomes. Related to this is the need to integrate gender considerations throughout the indicators—and particularly in relation to the adaptation cycle—to ensure that progress on gender-responsive adaptation is assessed.

The inclusion of indicators for adaptation finance, technology transfer, and capacity building—or means of implementation indicators—is equally critical for strengthening accountability and transparency, as well as promoting fairness and effectiveness in support. They help countries understand why progress may be uneven; identify financial, institutional, and technological capacity gaps; and pinpoint what systemic challenges and barriers are hindering adaptation planning and implementation. If done well, the assessment of progress could help build trust, accountability, and momentum for accelerating adaptation actions.

Ensuring that adaptation action is gender-responsive

It is well established that adaptation efforts will not be effective if they do not address gender and social inequalities that exacerbate vulnerability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2022 that the intersection of gender with race, Indigeneity, disability, and other social factors compounds vulnerability to climate change, and that inequities linked to gender could be worsened if adaptation actions do not address harmful power dynamics and promote inclusive decision making. Reflecting this reality, the need for a gender-responsive approach to adaptation is enshrined in the Paris Agreement.

The Gender Action Plan (GAP) under the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender serves as the main vehicle under the UNFCCC for advancing gender-responsive climate action. Countries will agree on the next iteration of the GAP at COP 30, presenting an important opportunity to create a robust, actionable roadmap for the systematic mainstreaming of gender considerations across the different workstreams under the UNFCCC, including those related to adaptation.

Ensuring that gender is embedded in key mechanisms such as national adaptation plans (NAPs) and biennial transparency reports (BTRs) will support the implementation of the GAP at the national level.

The GAP also plays an important role in framing gender issues and facilitating collaboration among different actors in the adaptation space. With this in mind, it is critical that countries adopt inclusive language that reflects gender diversity and intersectional approaches. This next iteration is an opportunity to broaden the scope, ensuring that capacities are strengthened across the range of actors involved in driving gender-responsive climate action at the national level, including those involved in NAP processes. The GAP should promote the use of disaggregated data and gender analysis to move toward evidence-based decision making and a deeper understanding of gender issues as they relate to climate change, beyond generalizations about women’s particular vulnerabilities.

As noted above, another key entry point at COP 30 to advance gender-responsive adaptation action is the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience and the indicators being established to track progress toward the global goal on adaptation. As countries agree on these indicators, they must keep in mind that gender-responsiveness is fundamental to adaptation effectiveness. This means that gender must be included in the iterative adaptation cycle indicators, and that disaggregated data is needed to assess equity in benefits from adaptation actions under the thematic targets in areas such as biodiversity, food and agriculture, water, and health.

Bringing it home: Delivering on COP outcomes at the national level 

As COPs grow larger and more expensive, many have voiced their concerns about the state of multilateralism and the effectiveness of UN Climate Change Conferences in driving climate ambition and delivering real results.

It is worth noting that all the finance, indicators, and frameworks discussed at the international level matter only if they are implemented at the national and subnational levels. It is up to governments to turn global adaptation commitments and support into national actions that protect people, livelihoods, and ecosystems.

This is where the NAP process comes in. It remains the main vehicle for countries to identify and address their medium- and long-term priorities for adapting to climate change and establish the systems and capacities needed to make adaptation an integral part of their development planning, decision making, and budgeting.

Done right, the NAP process ensures that adaptation finance is channelled to the right places and used effectively. Strengthening national MEL systems for adaptation through the NAP process also helps ensure adaptation investments stay effective, equitable, and responsive to evolving local realities, while contributing country-level information to the global assessment of collective progress on adaptation through the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience and the global stocktake under the Paris Agreement. Similarly, countries are already integrating gender considerations into their NAP processes to contribute to the implementation of the GAP.

At COP 30, countries will resume negotiations on the NAP assessment to recognize the adaptation efforts of developing countries and the progress they have made in advancing their NAP processes. The final decision would also identify remaining challenges and barriers, as well as best practices and forward-looking mandates to address gaps and help accelerate the transition from adaptation planning to implementation.

Importantly, the outcome of the NAP assessment must signal that strong adaptation governance and systems are the foundation of effective adaptation.

Without adaptation mainstreaming, a gender-responsive and socially inclusive approach, the right institutional arrangements, and technical capacity, the NAP process will not deliver adaptation outcomes where they are needed the most.

COP is important, but ultimately, where the rubber hits the road is when countries need to turn COP decisions into national actions that deliver for people and nature. Bridging the adaptation finance gaps, developing robust indicators to measure progress, and ensuring the systems are in place for gender-responsive and socially inclusive adaptation are all essential pieces of the puzzle. However, their impact will only be felt when countries turn resources into action, data into decisions, and ambition into results.