Earth Today | ‘Too little, too slow’
Report calls for scaled-up adaptation amid growing climate risks
Published:Thursday | September 7, 2023 | 12:06 AM
A 2022 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is once again calling attention to the need for accelerated adaptation actions to keep pace with climate impacts.
These impacts, to which Caribbean small island developing states are among those most vulnerable, range from sea level rise to coastal erosion and extreme hurricanes and droughts, together with the associated compromised freshwater resources and food systems.
“The number and volume of adaptation actions supported through international climate funds (Adaptation Fund, Green Climate Fund, and the Global Environment Facility’s Least Developed Countries Fund and Special Climate Change Fund), multilateral finance and bilateral donor support continue to increase, though the rate may be slowing. Actions are concentrated in the agriculture, water, ecosystems and cross-cutting sectors and primarily address rainfall variability, drought and flooding,” said the report titled Too Little, Too Slow: Climate adaptation failure puts world at risk.
“However, without a step change in financial support, adaptation actions could be outstripped by accelerating climate impacts, which would further widen the adaptation implementation gap. In addition, only three out of 10 principal adaptation actions (reflecting around 40 per cent of the funding volume) reported by climate finance providers to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) are explicitly targeting climate risk reduction, while the degree to which all other actions address adaptation is unclear. Better labelling of financial support could help clarify its contribution to adaptation,” it added.
ADJUSTMENT
Adaptation, according to information from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, refers to “adjustments in ecological, social or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects”. This takes account of adjustments in not only processes but also practices and structures “to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change”.
According to the UNEP report, adaptation actions remain incremental with policies and projects tending to be oriented towards the short term and focused on single hazards.
“Second, they are in general narrow in scope, meaning that they inadequately address the root causes of climate exposure and vulnerability, and insufficiently address the compounding and cascading nature of climate risk. Third, policies and projects are not being implemented at the necessary scale. Last, international support is not sufficiently aligning with the needs expressed by countries in their NDCs,” it explained.
The report has therefore championed “groundbreaking acceleration in scientific research, innovative planning, more and better finance and implementation, increased monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and deeper international cooperation”.
“This also calls for deep, long-term commitments by the international community towards more ambitious adaptation and mitigation,” it said.
At the same time, the report said that there are a number of general principles of good adaptation practice to ensure that adaptation actions are “relevant, appropriate, sustainable, equitable and effective”.
They include the “genuine inclusion of stakeholders as well as local communities, indigenous peoples, women and other marginalised groups into decision-making and co-development of adaptation planning and implementation to reflect differing values, perspectives and interests and to produce equitable, fair and just adaptation outcomes”.
They also extend to “transparency, accountability and predictability of support and integration of adaptation intonational development priorities, strategies and the Sustainable Development Goals” as well as “flexible programming and adaptive management of implementation to consider feedback and learnings and to enhance efficiencies”.
These are in addition to “investment in local capabilities, capacity-building and democratic governance structures in support of climate risk management and empowerment for long-term sustainability” and “consideration of future risks, including climate trajectories and uncertainties, to minimise unintended consequences and maladaptation, while enhancing adaptation ambition”.