At COP28 in Dubai last November, countries agreed specific global targets on adaptation for the first time.
This marked a significant step forward for the “global goal on adaptation” (GGA) work programme, which was established in 2015, but has seen little progress over the subsequent years.
The GGA framework agreed last year sets out targets that will act as a guide for nations in their efforts to protect their people and ecosystems from the impacts of climate change.
The agreement also saw the launch of the two-year UAE-Belém work programme, which will produce a set of indicators to track progress towards these targets by COP30 next year.
Recently, more than 5,000 potential indicators were submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat by parties and non-party stakeholders, including UN bodies, specialised agencies and other relevant organisations.
This created a daunting challenge: how to select adaptation indicators that are meaningful, feasible and that do not cause undue reporting burden?
In this article, we look at a series of key considerations for developing effective indicators that track progress on adaptation.
What is the ‘global goal on adaptation’?
The GGA in the Paris Agreement aims to enhance adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change, in the context of the goal to limit global average temperature increase to “well-below 2C”.
Until recently, progress towards the GGA becoming operational has been slow. But COP28 saw a significant step forwards, with countries agreeing a global framework known as the “United Arab Emirates framework for global climate resilience”.
The GGA framework includes 11 global targets to be achieved by 2030. Seven are targets for adaptation action in specific themes: water; health; biodiversity; food; infrastructure; poverty; and heritage. And the other four targets are for the adaptation cycle: climate risk and vulnerability assessments; planning; implementation and monitoring; and evaluation and learning.
Tracking progress towards these targets needs a set of indicators to measure against. Many are already available and used in other contexts, but this work involves identifying a set that can be applied globally under the GGA.
In June 2024 at the UN’s Bonn climate negotiations, countries agreed to begin this process by mapping existing indicators and identifying gaps. The graphic below shows the timeline for developing the indicators, which will culminate at COP30 in Belém, Brazil next year.
Timeline to develop indicators for the GGA framework, across the next two UN climate conferences – COP29 and COP30 – and the 60th (SB60) and 62nd (SB62) sessions of the subsidiary bodies to the UNFCCC under the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Source: Updated from Leiter (2024a), timeline by Carbon Brief.
Developing indicators is challenging because adaptation is context-specific, influenced by framing and value judgements, and is closely interlinked with sustainable development.
There is, therefore, no universal metric for adaptation akin to reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.
Developing adaptation indicators that apply to a broad range of actions across diverse contexts is particularly difficult. The compilation of indicators by the UNFCCC secretariat shows that there is a lack of indicators that can be aggregated to the global level.
Developing suitable indicators to track progress of the GGA targets requires time, expertise and resources – and a targeted process that combines technically sound inputs with political consultations.
Robust GGA indicators
Before forming the indicators themselves, it is critical to establish how the GGA targets can be tracked. We have identified nine key considerations that the UAE-Belem work programme will need to address.
First, each GGA target consists of multiple elements, so the first step towards developing suitable indicators must be to unpack each target, to identify the key elements and then guide development of the indicators based on these elements.
For example, the table below lists the key elements of the GGA’s water target and impact, vulnerability and risk assessment target.
The presence of multiple elements within each target means that each target requires multiple indicators if its scope is to be fully covered. Hence, at a minimum, several dozen indicators will be needed to measure progress towards the 11 targets.
(A breakdown of the key elements of each of the seven thematic targets and for the four targets around the iterative adaptation cycle are provided in recent UNFCCC submissions by LSE and the AGN.)
The second key consideration is how to secure ambitious interpretations of the targets.
Many elements of the targets require further clarification, as seen in the table above. This is especially important for the development of appropriate indicators that are to be used at the global level, as opposed to national or local level.
The way target elements are interpreted will influence the ambition level of the targets and how they are tracked through the indicators.
For example, the 2023 adaptation gap report found that 85% of countries already have a national adaptation plan or an equivalent planning document. Accordingly, further specifications – such as having the plan be informed by risk assessments or be regularly updated – will increase ambition.
It is important for the indicator work programme to consider the influence of the indicators and the associated calculation methods on the ambition of the targets.
Countries could also agree to additional specifications that are not mentioned in the targets that would further increase ambition. For example, in addition to policies and plans, countries could be tracked for the establishment of legal instruments that foster adaptation.
Adaptation-relevant indicators
The third key consideration is ensuring that indicators are relevant to adaptation.
Given the thousands of existing indicators developed for different purposes, defining what counts as adaptation-relevant is key for mapping and for the development of suitable GGA indicators.
However, many existing indicators were not developed to directly track climate adaptation actions as described in the GGA targets. If they are to be adopted under the GGA, it needs to be demonstrated how these indicators measure adaptation specifically – distinguishing them from other general development indicators – and how they will track GGA targets.
For example, indicators should at least be able to measure one of the key elements that define climate adaptation: changes in vulnerability; exposure; adaptive capacity; resilience; risks; and impacts from climate change. Additionally, outcome-based targets should be tracked with outcome-based indicators.
The fourth key consideration is understanding which elements in the GGA targets can be tracked with existing adaptation-relevant indicators – with or without modification – and where new indicators are required.
We completed a rapid assessment of the indicators available from existing global frameworks and UN climate funding mechanisms. As the table below shows, many existing indicators are insufficient for tracking GGA targets.
For example, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction has a series of indicators, including those covering the number of countries that have multi-hazard early warning systems and the number of countries that have multi-hazard monitoring and forecasting systems (see G1-4 here).
While these could be adopted for the early warning systems element under the impacts, vulnerability and risk target, the majority of the Sendai indicators cannot be adopted without significant modification.
Table 2: Mapping and gap analysis showing sufficiency of existing indicators in multilateral frameworks for GGA targets: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Sendai Framework (SF), and Convention on Biological Diversity Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (CBD); the UN climate funding mechanism: Green Climate Fund (GCF) and Adaptation Fund (AF); and Adaptation Gap Report (AGR). Sufficiency was assessed based on adaptation relevance of the indicators to effectively track the key element of the target.
Best-available science and data
The fifth key consideration is that the indicators will need to cover the support of adaptation, not just the actions themselves. This means tracking the means of implementation – that is, adaptation finance, technology transfer and capacity building – to enhance adaptation action and support.
Sixth is ensuring that indicators are robust and based on best-available science. This requires them to be accompanied by clear calculation methods and definitions.
For example, tracking progress towards the GGA infrastructure target requires determining how to measure “climate-related impacts on infrastructure”. Without clear guidance for countries, the indicator values would not be comparable and could not be used for global aggregation.
The seventh key consideration is exploring innovative data sources and methods. Ideally, this would involve indicators using multiple data sources, with technology offering the potential to fill data gaps and support high-quality data.
For example, remote sensing, artificial intelligence and digital tools – such as mobile phones – can offer cost-effective alternatives to traditional data gathering at the national level.
The eighth key consideration is including technical experts. Due to the technical complexity of the indicator work programme, it is crucial that technical experts receive clear guidelines and detailed procedures. This includes work organisation, timelines, inputs and outputs, with balanced regional representation to ensure contextual relevance.
Finally, the last consideration is agreeing on the remaining UAE-Belem work programme details in 2024.
The COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan is pivotal for achieving consensus on the GGA indicator work programme regarding any outstanding issues. Parties are expected to conclude at the talks with consensus on the programme's implementation, including clarifying processes, scope of work, roles and deliverables for 2025.
Given the limited time to complete the work before COP30 in Belém, such consensus could be crucial.
The post Guest post: How to track progress towards the ‘global goal on adaptation’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: How to track progress towards the ‘global goal on adaptation’?
When José Antonio Kast took office as Chile’s new president in March, one of his first moves was to put the brakes on plans to expand two protected marine parks – raising doubts about the country’s high-profile bid to host the headquarters of the High Seas Treaty.
But during the UN General Assembly last month, the right-wing leader reaffirmed his leftist predecessor’s ambition for Chile to host the landmark global pact, which came into effect in January and provides a legal framework to protect the waters of the high seas beyond national jurisdiction that cover about two-thirds of the world’s oceans.
Hailing the country’s “maritime vocation”, Kast’s government said the bid to host the treaty’s secretariat in the port city of Valparaíso was state policy and testament to its commitment to multilateralism.
“For the government of Chile, it is of high interest to achieve this recognition, and we will carry out all the efforts to obtain the necessary support,” Foreign Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna was quoted as saying by local media.
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Tough competition from Chinese, Belgian bids
But to garner the votes it needs, Chile must fend off competing bids by Belgium – which has proposed its well-connected capital, Brussels – and China, whose well-funded bid includes the provision of free premises in the coastal city of Xiamen and five years of free utility costs.
Parties to the treaty, formally called the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), will choose the headquarters at their first summit (COP1), in New York from January 11 to January 22, 2027. They will seek consensus, falling back on a two-thirds majority in successive secret ballots.
Chile has offered to provide a restored waterside warehouse “at its own expense” as office space, pitching itself to developing countries as a Global South alternative to Europe-centred Brussels. Among richer countries, it is promoting its democratic credentials and greater transparency as an alternative to China.
Rolling back environmental safeguards at home?
While the South American country remains the top pick among environmental campaigners and other civil society groups, critics of Kast’s government say recent policy moves may make it harder for the country to garner the support it needs.
On March 12, the day after Kast took office, the Environment Ministry withdrew 43 decrees awaiting legal approval, including a push to expand the Mar de Juan Fernández and Nazca-Desventuradas marine parks – vast protected areas in Chile’s Pacific Ocean waters. Both remain under review, the ministry told Climate Home News.
The decrees also included an emission standard for coal power plants and regulations for Chile’s new biodiversity and protected areas service.
A month after holding up the decrees, Kast questioned aspects of Chile’s urban wetlands protection law, suggesting it was sometimes an unjustified obstacle to much-needed housing development, and his administration has also sought to ease the rules on salmon farming in the world’s second-largest producer.
In August, the Constitutional Court struck down the salmon farming reform after a challenge by opposition lawmakers and warnings from green groups including Greenpeace, which said it could help farms relocate into protected areas such as the Kawésqar National Reserve.
Valparaíso mayor Camila Nieto, from former leftist President Gabriel Boric’s party, backs the bid to host the High Seas Treaty, but said she hoped “the government’s support also translates into public policies consistent with the goals of protecting and conserving the oceans”.
“The decisions a country makes on environmental matters can influence international perceptions of its commitment to protecting the oceans. That is something we cannot ignore,” Nieto told Climate Home News.
China’s bid stirs concerns over data access, fishing
Chile’s past record on marine protection – it has protected 43% of its jurisdictional waters – could yet give it an edge.
“Chile deserves it for its conservation record as a state. For more than 15 years Chile has been following this path,” Liesbeth van der Meer, executive director at conservation group Oceana in Chile, told Climate Home News.
Concerns in some quarters about the rival bid by China – for example, over a potential conflict of interest due to the vast Chinese fishing industry – may also weigh in Chile’s favour, experts say.
Chinese-flagged vessels did about 30% of detected high seas fishing between 2022 and 2024, according to an Oceana analysis of Global Fishing Watch data. China also sponsors five of the International Seabed Authority’s 31 deep-sea mining exploration contracts, more than any other country.
The secretariat would host sensitive marine data, making transparency paramount, experts say.
China says hosting the secretariat in Xiamen would help make the treaty more globally representative, fostering cooperation between rich and developing countries and aiding equitable access to marine science and technology.
Wang Yi, China’s minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement that the country has “all along championed true multilateralism” and “firmly defended” UN institutions. Given Xiamen’s $38-billion ocean industry, the city lives up to the treaty’s “significance and promising future”, he added.
Meanwhile, Chile is proposing the treaty’s first high seas marine protected area for the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges, a chain of more than 110 seamounts stretching about 4,000 km from off Peru to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that is rich in endemic fish and other marine species.
The ridges are “a true oasis of productivity”, said Carlos Gaymer, director of the Centre for Ecology and Sustainable Management of Oceanic Islands at Universidad Católica del Norte and co-author of a 2021 scientific review of the area.
The water is so clear that phytoplankton thrive around 200 metres down, feeding zooplankton, small fish and, up the chain, sharks and seabirds. Whales, turtles and sharks use the ridges as “a real highway” across the Pacific, Gaymer said. Parts of the Nazca ridge are likely nursery grounds for jack mackerel and swordfish.
Chile has already asked the body that regulates the industry in the area – the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) – to close the ridges to all fishing vessels. According to Chilean data, more than 80% of fishing in the area involves Chinese vessels.
Meeting on the Chilean request in early September, SPRFMO’s scientific committee agreed only to recommend closing the area to bottom fishing. SPRFMO’s commission will take the final decision at its next meeting, in early 2027.
For Gaymer, Chile’s push to close the area to fishing should be seen as a “starting point” for the treaty proposal.
“Every time there’s a new expedition, species new to science appear,” Gaymer said. “If you don’t protect areas like these … those species simply disappear from the planet.”
The post Race to host High Seas Treaty HQ heats up as Chile reaffirms bid appeared first on Climate Home News.
Race to host High Seas Treaty HQ heats up as Chile reaffirms bid
Mohamed Adow is the founder and director of Power Shift Africa.
What does it mean to ask a continent to adapt to a crisis it did little to create? For Africa, that question has stopped being philosophical as it is answered every day in flooded communities, failed harvests, disappearing livelihoods and public budgets stretched by disasters they cannot afford.
Africa produces a negligible share of global emissions, but between 1970 and 2021 it accounted for around 35% of climate-related deaths worldwide. The continent is therefore confronting a brutal contradiction that is exemplified by the fact that those who have contributed least to the climate crisis are carrying some of its heaviest costs.
And that explains why, for us, it is worrying that much of the climate debate treats adaptation as a technical exercise. Build better infrastructure, they say. Improve early-warning systems, they urge. Develop drought-resistant crops, they preach. Strengthen disaster preparedness, they yell. All of these things matter, but they do not answer the harder question of why some people and countries are so much more vulnerable in the first place.
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That is the question we have spent the last couple of years trying to answer, and it culminates in our recently launched thought-provoking report that shows how Africa’s vulnerability is not an accident of geography, but has instead been shaped by history, economics and power.
Colonial extraction, unequal development, debt dependency, global economic asymmetries and exclusion from international decision-making have all constrained the resources and choices available to African countries, and climate change is intensifying those existing inequalities, shows the report, titled “A Just Transition for Adaptation: A Framework and Vision for Africa”.
Widening adaptation finance gap
I say it is ‘thought-provoking’ because it asks us to rethink adaptation itself – not as a collection of projects designed to help people cope with climate impacts, but as a question of justice, power and structural change.
That distinction might not sit well with some people, but for Africa it matters, because there is a danger in asking vulnerable countries simply to become more “resilient”. Resilient against what? How can you ask people to toughen up while letting them be strangled by a system that continues to reproduce the very inequalities that have made resilience so difficult?
If you want to know where the problem is, see where the money is coming from and where it is going. That becomes quite stark when you consider the fact that Africa’s annual adaptation needs are close to $70 billion but its adaptation finance flows are only around $14 billion.
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At the same time, a growing proportion of climate finance is being delivered through commercial loans rather than grants. That means countries already under severe fiscal pressure are being asked to borrow to protect themselves from climate impacts they did little to cause.
There is something deeply wrong with a system in which climate-vulnerable countries are spending more of their own public money on adaptation than they receive in international support, because that system turns climate injustice into a financial transaction, with those least responsible carrying more of the cost.