The COP30 climate summit in Belém will put adaptation to a warming world front and centre, with the aim of moving negotiations from technical debate to deciding how to measure adaptation progress and accelerating action on the ground, according to Alice Amorim, Brazil’s COP30 programme director.
At the mid-year UN talks in Bonn, countries reached a compromise on work to select a set of 100 indicators this year for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), which is part of the Paris Agreement.
But a key sticking point has been how to track funding for vulnerable communities to become more resilient to climate shifts – which affect everything from agriculture to water and infrastructure – in a way that can help ensure that developed countries are providing adequate support to developing nations.
IEA says some oil and gas projects must shut early to meet 1.5C limit
A meeting of technical experts in late August narrowed down the list of GGA indicators to 113, but was unable to agree on how to monitor finance for adaptation, according to a summary released this week.
With the negotiations set to continue at COP30, Amorim told this month’s Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa that she hopes countries will finally agree on the indicators in Belém, adding that the Brazil conference – being described as an “implementation COP” – must go further to shape a system that can quickly turn those decisions into real-world results.
“This is a moment where we don’t need to wait anymore for all parties to agree on what needs to happen to make adaptation finance flow to Africa, to Latin America, to the small island states and so on. It’s about acting upon it, it’s about moving from commitments to practice,” Amorim said.
She added that there should be no more delay in investing in adaptation and resilience-building because resources are needed urgently to build climate-safe infrastructure and implement national adaptation plans.
COP30 will not launch “shiny new initiatives”, she added, but will bring existing solutions “to understand what is already happening on the ground that needs to be leveraged and what are the gaps that financial sector players and policy makers need to address”.
An existing goal to double adaptation finance to around $40 billion a year by 2025 – agreed at COP26 – expires this year, and experts say it has helped drive more money into adaptation.
The Least Developed Countries group has called for a new goal of tripling finance from 2022 levels by 2030 to close to $100 billion a year. But even that would not close the gap which the UN estimates to be $160 billion-$340 billion a year by 2030.
Addis summit gets behind adaptation
Brazil’s Amorim told the Africa climate summit in Ethiopia last week that the need for adaptation “is clear and tangible” on the continent. What is missing, however, are the conditions to drive it in a much wider and faster way, she added.
Adapting to climate change by shoring up defences against negative impacts such as extreme heat, floods and food insecurity remains a priority for African countries. Leaders at the summit made it clear in their final declaration – yet to be published – that the continent needs scaled-up, grant-based and concessional finance for adaptation, whose delivery should avoid loading countries with more debt.
Since 2017, most adaptation finance flows to the continent have come as loans, with little private sector investment, raising fears over rising debt burdens on the continent. While Africa needs about $70 billion annually for adaptation, it received only $14.8 billion in 2023, according to an analysis by the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) and Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) released during the summit.
The analysis showed that since most adaptation finance comes from international public sources such as donor governments and multilateral development banks, cuts in bilateral aid mean capital flows to sub-Saharan Africa are projected to decline in 2025.
“Public health emergency”: Report shows fossil fuel impacts on every stage of life
Reacting to the report’s findings, Macky Sall, former president of Senegal and chair of the GCA, said the aid cuts from major donor countries would be “unprecedented – and unacceptable – precisely when resilience spending must rise”.
To enable African countries to build resilient infrastructure without piling on unsustainable debt, Sall called on developed-country partners “to reverse planned reductions, ring-fence adaptation within aid budgets, and expand guarantees and local-currency facilities”.
Tadeous Chifamba, permanent secretary of environment, climate and wildlife in Zimbabwe, said COP30 should focus attention on increasing adaptation finance flows to Africa, drive a restructuring of the global financial architecture and ensure developed countries, which are responsible for historical emissions, play their part in mobilising funds for adaptation.
“It has become a moral obligation on their part to ensure that there is fairness, justice and that they assume responsibility just as we are doing as the first-line defenders,” Chifamba told an event on the sidelines of the Addis summit.
Mobilising African money too
While African leaders need developed countries to help deliver finance for adaptation, they made it clear at the summit that the continent is not asking for charity, but is championing local solutions and will also mobilise resources from African financial institutions to respond to climate shocks.
At the summit, the second phase of the Africa-led Adaptation Acceleration Program (AAAP)- a joint initiative of the African Development Bank and the GCA – was launched with a goal to mobilise $50 billion by 2030 to climate-proof Africa and build resilience in different sectors including agriculture, infrastructure, food systems and urban areas, as well as creating jobs.
This is a boost to the program’s initial target of $25 billion and will be achieved through a convergence of private-sector leadership, innovation and resilient economic growth, according to the GCA.
COP observers invited to reveal who is bank-rolling their participation at climate talks
Bernadette Arakwiye, Rwanda’s environment minister, told the summit that Africa needs to shift from a position of deficit to opportunity, and start leveraging its assets by unlocking domestic capital. “Africa’s financial institutions hold trillions in assets and yet only a fraction is flowing to climate resilience – we need to change this,” she added.
Investing for resilient growth
Unlocking private finance would scale up adaptation investments to equip countries to quickly respond to climate shocks, Arakwiye emphasised, adding that private capital can move the continent away from small and fragmented initiatives to large-scale bankable projects.
The Baku-to-Belém Roadmap for boosting climate finance to $1.3 trillion a year by 2035, to be presented at COP30, will go some way in showing how more funds can be raised for adaptation, including through multilateral development banks, private investment and country platforms for investment, Melanie Robinson, global climate director at the World Resources Institute (WRI), told journalists this week.
Comment: How COP30 could deliver an ambitious outcome on global finance flows
Citing WRI’s research, she noted that every dollar invested in adaptation can generate more than ten times its value in economic, social and environmental benefits.
In addition to finance, policy and regulatory changes such as insurance systems, land zoning and business incentives are also needed to support adaptation on the ground, she said.
“COP30 will be an opportunity to focus more on adaptation and resilience – and this is about investing, not just to save lives, although that’s very important, but actually to drive resilient growth and enable communities and businesses to thrive in a changing climate,” she added.
The post Can COP30 turn adaptation talks into real-world investments? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Can COP30 turn adaptation talks into real-world investments?
Discussing climate change can make a difference. Focusing on the impacts in everyday life is a good place to start, experts say.
When Bad Bunny climbed onto broken power lines during his Super Bowl halftime show, millions of viewers saw a spectacle. Climate communicators saw a lesson in how to talk about climate change.
Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny
Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.
“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.
“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.
“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.
“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”
-ENDS-
Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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