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This year’s UN climate change conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, takes place amid worsening climate impacts – even countries that were not considered among the most vulnerable are waking up to the urgent need to adapt to a warming planet. 

New research from the UN Environment Programme highlights the scale of the adaptation challenge and how it has grown in prominence, while finance to tackle rising needs has lagged behind. 

This year’s Adaptation Gap Report highlights the “extremely large” gap between adaptation finance needs in developing countries – estimated at $215 billion-$387 billion per year this decade – and actual flows of money. In 2022, international public finance for adaptation projects reached only $28 billion, up from $22 billion in 2021, the report notes.

“The climate crisis is here. We can’t postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres said in a video statement when the report was released, calling for “a massive increase in adaptation finance from public and private sources”.

“Immediate necessity”

Since the Adaptation Fund was established, it has invested more than $1.2 billion in over 180 different projects around the world, benefiting around 46 million vulnerable people and training around 1.6 million people in climate resilience measures.

In the more than 17 years that the fund has operated in the field, the urgency to respond in the present – and not leave it to future generations as the problem was often framed in the past – has become crystal clear. 

The fund has managed to stay flexible and evolve with the world around it. 

“In this rapidly changing world, adaptation is no longer a distant goal; it is an immediate necessity that requires urgent investments because delays in meeting adaptation finance needs lead to increasing costs of inaction, reaching limits of adaptation and increasing loss and damage,” said Adaptation Fund Head Mikko Ollikainen. 

“The Fund’s ability to adapt to a changing landscape has been crucial. By fostering tangible and scalable actions on the ground, innovation and locally led adaptation, we empower pilot projects to demonstrate their value and pave the way for larger-scale climate action.” 

Proud pioneers 

This is what happened, for example, with one of the Adaptation Fund’s earliest recipients of its grant funding: the Centre de Suivi Ecologique (CSE), an environmental institution in Senegal, which tapped into the fund’s pioneering direct access programme. 

Back in 2010, CSE was awarded $8.6 million to implement a complex project to stop coastal erosion in three regions – Rufisque, Saly and Joal – where sea level rise threatened thousands of livelihoods in tourism and fishing. 

In Saly, a village around 50 miles (80.5 km) from the capital Dakar, the project built a new 730-metre seawall, 1.4-km long underwater berms, and a 3.3-km dyke to prevent saltwater from reaching fertile rice fields. 

According to Dr. Assize Toure, then CSE’s director-general, the project “helped protect thousands of lives, infrastructure and goods while raising awareness of climate change in three cities along Senegal’s vulnerable coast”. 

Senegal was “proud to be a pioneer” of that original funding, he said, adding that it directly led to new opportunities and initiatives to combat climate change in the country.

After the success of the initial project – which protected an estimated 3,000 jobs – CSE won a separate round of funding a few years later to further bolster the resilience of coastal communities to the encroaching sea. 

The head of CSE’s climate finance unit, Aïssata Sall, believes that the different forms of support on offer from the Adaptation Fund – to help with everything from project preparation to learning grants – have improved results, and boosted the ability of CSE and other partners working on the ground to mobilise more resources.

“That inevitably contributes to the Paris Agreement,” she told the fund.

Adaptation grows in importance

The earliest UN climate conferences, back in the 1990s, often made only passing references to adaptation.  

The first climate COP in 1995 stated that adaptation would “require short, medium and long-term strategies which are cost-effective”. But it was the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, that first established a specific vehicle – the Adaptation Fund – to help finance these projects in developing countries through concrete projects for the most climate-vulnerable. 

Dr. Toure of CSE described the Adaptation Fund’s arrival in the landscape of climate finance as “a major development for developing countries”. The fund now serves the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015.

Almost 30 years since the fund’s inception, we are living with the impacts of extreme weather on a regular basis – and the need to adapt to this new reality is urgent. It is hard to tell whether those negotiating at the early COP summits fully anticipated how climate change would develop, and the role adaptation would need to play as the crisis intensifies. 

By contrast, the outcome of the COP28 conference in Dubai last year includes almost 100 references to adaptation, starting on the very first page. 

The adaptation landscape has changed considerably since the first UN climate conference was held in Berlin. More money is flowing into projects that vary in size and ambition around the world – and there are more funds dedicated to scaling up this work to ensure many more millions of people can be protected against climate disasters. However, adaptation finance needs continue to rise sharply.

Resource mobilisation target

The Adaptation Fund Board has set a resource mobilisation target of $300 million for this year amid a growing project pipeline approaching $500 million. Leaving Baku without meeting this target would send a dire signal to climate-vulnerable people around the world. 

The importance of the UN COP process as a central place for galvanising adaptation policy and finance should not be underestimated. It remains one of the few forums that gathers so many stakeholders for two weeks – and where new commitments are made each year. This COP in particular is of critical importance as it should agree on a new global climate finance goal. 

Those same governments and partners coming together in Baku for the latest negotiations are aware that sea levels are rising and extreme weather is directly threatening our way of life. Adaptation is the solution that can keep the waters at bay. It’s time to ensure that it’s properly funded. 

Sponsored by the Adaptation Fund. See our supporters page for what this means. 

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK. 

The post COP29: We need to adapt to climate chaos now appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP29: We need to adapt to climate chaos now

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China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies

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February 9, 2026

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Even the busiest streets of Shanghai have become noticeably quieter as sales of electric vehicles (EVs) skyrocketed in China, with charging points mushrooming in residential compounds, car parks and service stations across the megacity.

Many Chinese drivers have upgraded their conventional vehicles to electric ones – or already replaced old EVs with newer models – incentivised by the government’s generous trade-in policies, or tempted by the latest hi-tech features such as controls powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

“Different from conventional cars, EVs are more like fast-moving consumer goods, like smartphones,” explained Mo Ke, founder and chief analyst of Tianjin-based battery-research firm, RealLi Research. Their digital systems can become outdated quickly, so Chinese people typically change their EVs after five or six years while a conventional car can be driven much longer, he told Climate Home News.

EV sales surpassed 16 million in China last year. Roughly 10% of all vehicles on the road were electric, and half of all new vehicles sold carried a green EV number plate, with an average of 45,000 EVs rolling off the production lines each day.

But while fast-growing EV uptake is good news for Chinese EV and battery manufacturers, it is creating a huge volume of spent batteries.

Tsunami of spent batteries

Last year, China generated nearly 400,000 tonnes of old or damaged power batteries, largely consisting of vehicle batteries, according to government data. That is projected to rise to one million tonnes per year in 2030, officials forecast.

The growing waste problem has spurred the government to launch a series of new policies aimed at regulating the country’s battery recycling industry, which though well-established is marked by a high degree of informality – especially in the lucrative repurposing sector where discarded EV batteries are given a new lease of life in less energy-intensive uses, such as power storage.

    China is determined to build a “standardised, safe and efficient” recycling system for batteries, Wang Peng, a director at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told a press conference as the government launched a recycling industry push in mid-January.

    A policy paper published by the government last month detailed Beijing’s plans to mandate end-of-life recycling for EVs together with their batteries to prevent them from entering the grey, informal market, and establish a digital system to track the lifecycle of every battery manufactured in the country. Under the plans, EV and battery makers will be held responsible for recycling the batteries they produce and sell.

    “The volume of the Chinese market is too big, so it has to take actions ahead of other countries,” Mo said, adding that he expected the government to release more details about implementation of the plans in the near future.

    Critical minerals choke point

    China’s strategy for the battery recycling sector could also prove a boon for the world’s largest battery producer by bolstering its supply of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.

    Along with the looming large-scale battery retirement, policymakers’ focus on battery recycling also reflects concern about critical minerals supplies, said Li Yifei, assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University Shanghai. “The government also felt the increasing pressure of securing resources,” he told Climate Home News.

    “When you set up an efficient battery-recycling system, you essentially secure a new source for critical minerals, and that can help you enhance economic security. That’s why the industry is so important,” Lin Xiao, chief executive of Botree Recycling Technologies, a Chinese company offering battery-recycling solutions, told Climate Home News.

    Cobalt and nickel-free electric car batteries boom in “good news” for rainforests

    China dominates global refining of several minerals critical for producing EV batteries, but it still relies on imports of the raw materials – a choke point Beijing is acutely aware of, industry experts say.

    China imports more than 90% of its cobalt, nickel and manganese, which are important ingredients for EV batteries, Hu Song, a senior researcher with the state-run China Automotive Technology and Research Centre, told China’s CCTV state broadcaster in June 2025. For lithium, the figure was around 60% in 2024, according to a separate report.

    “If [those] resources cannot be recycled, then we will keep facing strangleholds in the future,” Hu said.

    Big players gain ground

    Spent EV batteries can be reused in settings that have lower energy requirements, such as in two-wheelers or energy-storage systems. When they become too depleted for repurposing, they can be scrapped and shredded into “black mass”, a powdery mixture containing valuable metals that can be recovered.

    Reflecting the size of China’s EV market, the country already dominates global battery recycling capacity. It is home to 78% of the world’s battery pre-treatment capacity, which is for scrapping and shredding, and 89% of the capacity for refining black mass, according to 2025 forecasts by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a UK firm tracking battery supply chains.

    A number of large corporate players have emerged in the sector in recent years.

    Huayou Cobalt, a major producer of battery minerals, has built a business model for recycling, repurposing and shredding old batteries, as well as refining black mass and making new batteries using recovered materials.

    It recently signed a deal with Encory, a joint venture between BMW and Berlin-based environmental service provider Interzero, to develop cutting-edge battery-recycling technologies, with their first joint factory set to open in China this year.

      Suzhou-based Botree Recycling Technologies has developed various solutions to turn retired power batteries into new ones. Meanwhile, Brunp Recycling, the recycling arm of Chinese battery giant CATL, has built large factories to recycle lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, a type of lithium battery that does not use nickel or cobalt, as well as nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, which are more popular outside of China.

      But Mo, of RealLi Research, said much remains to be done to regulate and formalise the battery recycling industry.

      Underground workshops

      Across China, small underground workshops plague the repurposing sector, rebundling depleted batteries for sale without following industry standards or complying with health and safety requirements.

      Because these operators have lower operational costs, they are able to offer higher prices to EV owners to buy their old batteries, undercutting formal recycling companies.

      “This creates distortions in the market where legitimate players, who invest in proper detection, hazardous waste treatment and compliance, struggle to compete purely on price,” a spokesperson at CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, told Climate Home News.

      Despite such challenges, CATL’s Brunp subsidiary produced 17,100 tonnes of lithium in 2024 from the 128,700 tonnes of depleted batteries it recycled that year, according to CATL’s annual report.

      Recycling expertise in demand

      Since it was founded in 2019, Botree has formed partnerships with several major clients, which together recycle about half of China’s power batteries, the company’s CEO Lin said.

      As other countries grapple with rising volumes of spent batteries, Chinese recyclers are also finding new foreign markets for their know-how.

      Botree has joined forces with Spanish consulting firm ILUNION and renewable energy company EFT-Systems to build a factory to recycle LFP batteries in Valladolid.

      The plant, scheduled to start operation in 2027, will be able to recycle 6,000 tonnes of LFPs annually when it opens, accounting for roughly 15% of demand in the Spanish market.

      “(The companies) tell us what batteries they recycle and what battery materials they want to regenerate,” Lin said. “We can design a complete process for them.”

      The post China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies appeared first on Climate Home News.

      China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies

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      A Groundbreaking Geothermal Heating and Cooling Network Saves This Colorado College Money and Water

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      February 9, 2026

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      When a former oil and gas developer partnered with Colorado Mesa University on geothermal, the school saved millions and set a new standard for energy-efficient buildings.

      By Phil McKenna

      GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—The discussions started roughly a decade ago, when an account manager at Xcel Energy, the electricity and gas utility provider, expressed confusion, officials at Colorado Mesa University recalled.

      A Groundbreaking Geothermal Heating and Cooling Network Saves This Colorado College Money and Water

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      Climate Change

      Georgia Power Gas Expansion Would Drive Significant Climate-Damaging Pollution

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      10 hours ago

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      February 9, 2026

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      The expansion could add millions of tons of carbon pollution annually while polluting the air near vulnerable communities and ecosystems.

      By Ryan Krugman

      Georgia regulators have approved a massive expansion of natural gas power plants that could dramatically increase the state’s climate pollution, largely to support the rapid growth of data centers.

      Georgia Power Gas Expansion Would Drive Significant Climate-Damaging Pollution

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