The impacts of climate change are already being felt by both humans and ecosystems, with extreme weather events and record-high temperatures becoming increasingly frequent and intense.
Established in the Paris Agreement, the global goal on adaptation (GGA) is designed to “ensure an adequate adaptation response” to protect people, livelihoods and ecosystems as the world aims to keep warming “well below” 2C or even to 1.5C.
However, intergovernmental negotiations on implementing the GGA have been bumpy and slow going.
Areas of disagreement include the setting of ambitious and measurable adaptation targets, how to track adaptation progress and support for increased adaptation.
In a recent policy brief article, we set out the need for robust, ambitious and time-bound targets for adaptation actions. These targets could cover adaptation planning, support and implementation for key sectors and systems, including food, health, water, ecosystems, infrastructure, cities and livelihoods.
The COP28 summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), is crucial for achieving consensus on putting the GGA into action, as the Glasgow-Sharm El Sheikh work programme on operationalising the GGA is expected to conclude at the talks with establishment of a GGA framework.
Already, the issue has proven contentious in negotiations, with developing countries pushing for greater focus on climate adaptation finance as part of the goal.
Putting the GGA into operation would set a clear signal for increased ambition and action on adaptation support and implementation.
Operationalising the GGA
The first step in tackling climate change impacts through the GGA is achieving political consensus on adaptation targets and the finance, technology and capacity-building support for achieving them.
Our research suggests this process should draw on recent scientific assessments, such as the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, UN Adaptation Gap reports and national-level submissions to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), such as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), national adaptation plans (NAPs) and adaptation communications (AdComs).
Targets could have quantitative or qualitative elements, or both, but need to be measurable, time-bound and ambitious, given the acceleration of adaptation actions required this decade to minimise loss and damage.
A second step is a further programme of work to develop metrics and indicators for tracking progress against the targets. Political progress on establishing targets better enables technical work for tracking adaptation progress, through monitoring and evaluation of adaptation actions. Progress towards the global goal through further work could then be collectively captured and reviewed under the global stocktake (GST) process to track progress together with other goals under the GST globally.
A similar programme of first establishing political agreement on targets and then requesting further technical work on indicators to track progress has been followed by other multilateral target-setting processes, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.
To initiate development of the GGA framework and to guide its achievement, countries that were signatories to the Paris Agreement created the Glasgow-Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on the GGA at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. It will consider a structured framework, including different “dimensions” of an iterative adaptation cycle – shown below.
Support in terms of finance, capacity-building and technology transfer should be a consideration under each dimension with a view to enhancing adaptation action and support.
Governments have also agreed to consider targets for key systems and sectors – called “themes” in the GGA negotiations – where increased adaptation action is urgently needed.
The figure below shows the themes under which GGA targets can be implemented.
Other considerations of the framework include fully transparent approaches that are able to capture the issues – highlighted below – which cut across the dimensions and themes of the framework.
Setting ambitious targets
A key part of the GGA framework will be establishing ambitious and measurable targets.
An overarching target for the GGA, for instance, could provide clarity for guiding adaptation investment globally by focusing on reducing climate impacts and risks – the outcome of effective adaptation.
Our policy brief outlines a series of factors to consider when setting an overarching target, as well as individual targets for each of the four “dimensions” mentioned earlier.
These suggestions – shown in the table below – focus on key elements of the GGA framework and are global in nature.
They have been informed by the latest scientific assessments and reports of adaptation needs, including the IPCC, UN Adaptation Gap reports, academic literature and national adaptation documents such as NDCs and NAPs for Africa, as well as other multilaterally agreed targets such as the SDGs and the Sendai Framework.
| Overarching target | Impact, risk and vulnerability target | Planning target | Implementation target | Monitoring and evaluation target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guide adaptation action and support | Identify climate risks and hazards to reduce exposure | As of 2022, 84% of countries have at least one national-level adaptation planning instrument in place (AGR 2022) | Increase implementation that aligns with priorities to effectively reduce climate vulnerability, exposure, impacts and risks, and avoids maladaptation | Design, set up, or improve and/or implement MEL processes and systems in light of climate risk including integration of local and Indigenous knowledge, traditional and other vulnerable groups knowledge to enhance buy-in and ownership |
| Reduce climate risk | Assess vulnerability to existing and future climate hazards as basis for early warning system | Ensure all parties have developed national adaptation plans, strategies and policy instrument | Close the adaptation gap | Developing countries having equitable access to MOIs for MEL |
| Scale up adequate support for adaptation | Parties to use identified information to prioritise sectors for adaptation measure and develop a comprehensive adaptation plan | Increase inclusive planning and enhanced implementation of plans | ||
| Should inform the underlying premise of the framework – thus, reduce risk, plan better, enhance implementation and finance adaptation | Access to MOI to prepare and implement plans, including investment and integration across levels and sectors | |||
| Move towards resilience, improving adaptive capacity and reducing vulnerability related to long-term temperature goal |
Factors to consider in developing targets for the GGA dimensions. Source: ACDI (2023)
Theme targets
Of the adaptation “themes” set out in GGA negotiations, we suggest targets for six of them, as published in our recent policy brief and below:
Health: Achieve universal health coverage by 2030 and eliminate global climate-related mortality and morbidity by 2040.
Ecosystem and biodiversity: By 2040 maintain the resilience of biodiversity and ecosystems services at the global scale by achieving effective and equitable conservation of 50% of Earth’s land, freshwater, and ocean areas, including near-natural ecosystems, substantially increase restoration and effective ecosystem-based adaptation, and avoid mitigation measures that damage ecosystems.
Food and agriculture: Achieve food security and end malnutrition in all forms by 2030, despite climate change, and substantially reduce adverse climate impacts on food and agricultural production and productivity, and the entire agriculture value chain by 2040.
Cities, settlements and infrastructure: Ensure resilience of cities, settlements and key infrastructure to climate change by 2040, including by considering climate change impacts and risks in the design and planning of all human settlements and infrastructure, and substantially increasing deployment of integrated social, ecological and grey/physical infrastructure that reduces vulnerability of people, especially in informal settlements and coastal settlements.
Water: Achieve universal access to safe and affordable drinking water by 2030 and substantially reduce climate-induced water scarcity by 2040 including improving water use efficiency and reducing exposure and vulnerability of water and sanitation systems to climate hazards.
Poverty and livelihoods: Increase resilience and substantially reduce adverse climate impacts on livelihoods as a share of a country’s total population by 2040, including through integrating climate change adaptation into social protection programmes supported by basic services and infrastructure.
These proposed targets are global in nature and could set the course for increased adaptation actions while allowing countries to align actions with nationally identified adaptation priorities.
Setting time-bound and measurable targets would further strengthen calls to support implementation and enhance tracking of progress to sustain adaptation actions.
What next for the GGA?
Developing countries are already experiencing widespread loss and damage from climate change underscoring the vital importance of the GGA.
Key considerations that will make the GGA relevant include the ability of a strong GGA framework to catalyse adaptation finance and actions; the potential of the GGA to close the existing adaptation gap that so far is widening for the global-south regions; and, finally, a GGA that avoids maladaptation.
At COP28, a meaningful outcome for the GGA would include agreement on ambitious, measurable and time-bound targets for the dimensions and themes, as well as the finance, technology transfer and capacity building as appropriate means of implementation for the GGA.
A GGA with a strong focus on reducing climate change impacts and risks is all the more pressing considering that the window of opportunity to limit global warming to 1.5C is closing fast and risks may emerge earlier than projected.
Decisions made at COP28 would, hopefully, launch further work on indicators and methodologies for tracking progress on achieving the targets and the means of implementation.
Our recommendations include support for the evaluation of how much adaptation finance each developing country needs. This could help to ensure sufficient financial support from developed countries for adaptation – something that has been insufficient up to this point.
We also suggest that more global climate funds could be set aside to plan, implement and assess adaptation progress.
Other recommendations include reducing the reporting burden for developing countries, establishing the need for comprehensive datasets and providing technical support for developing countries from bodies such as the IPCC.
The post Guest post: What would an ambitious ‘global goal on adaptation’ look like at COP28? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: What would an ambitious ‘global goal on adaptation’ look like at COP28?
High levels of national debt in parts of the Global South could hinder efforts to move away from fossil fuels, a new report warns, as more than 50 countries gather this week in Colombia for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.
The report, published by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative in the lead-up to the flagship conference, argues that the current debt architecture is trapping developing countries in a “feedback loop” in which fossil fuel revenues are needed to service debt, while fossil fuel expansion locks countries into borrowing even more.
The cycle, according to the report, leaves very little fiscal space for highly indebted countries to end their reliance on coal, oil and gas revenues, even when their leaders want to phase out fossil fuels. This is the case for some first-mover countries such as Colombia, which is hosting the conference in Santa Marta.
Amiera Sawas, one of the report’s authors and head of research and policy at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said the conflict in the Middle East is making this “debt injustice and fossil fuel entrapment” even more evident.
“What we have to start understanding is that both fossil fuels and debt are actually extractions from the Global South,” Sawas told the report’s launch during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings in Washington DC this month. “Many countries are paying more in debt servicing than they are getting in climate finance.”
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Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance
Since 2010, low and middle-income countries (LIMCs) have more than doubled their external debt, reaching an all-time high of $8.9 trillion two years ago. They paid about $415 billion in interest on that debt in 2024 – 2.4 times higher than a decade earlier.
At the same time, in some cases like Colombia, Egypt and Jordan, austerity measures agreed as part of IMF and World Bank loan programmes restrict governments from investing in cleaner sources of revenue like renewable energy, the report says.
Leading countries constrained by debt
Colombia – one of the countries leading the global call for a transition away from fossil fuels – is facing precisely such financial barriers to achieving its transition, said Camilo Rodríguez, another of the report’s authors and a research analyst with Oil Change International.
The country has halted all new oil and gas licences and published an energy transition plan estimating transition costs at about 7-10% of its GDP. Yet the government depends on fossil fuel revenues to service its $265-billion public debt, meaning it must find an alternative source of income to cover debt payments.
Rodríguez said debt “is the main barrier nowadays to promote the energy transition and the industrialisation of the economy”.
The South American country has only grown more dependent on fossil fuels over time, as they represented 36% of exports in 2001 and now account for about 52%. Austerity policies still in place after IMF loans have left very little room for investing in Colombia’s energy transition plan, the report says.
Other countries have shown similar patterns. Jordan – despite its staggering public debt equivalent to 90% of GDP – became one of the fastest-growing markets for wind, solar and electric vehicles in the Middle East region. From 2014 to 2021, Jordan went from less than 1% of its electricity generation coming from renewables to 26%, benefiting from the significantly cheaper costs of installing wind and solar power compared with adding fossil fuel capacity.
But Jordan’s high reliance on fossil fuel revenues created an incentive for policymakers to opt for expanding gas projects over renewables, and the country ended up suspending new licences for many solar and wind projects. In 2024, about 40% of government revenues were used to service debt.
“This is not marginal – it is central to the fiscal system. It creates what I would describe as structural fiscal addiction,” said Ali Nasrallah, a policy and research manager at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. “The state depends on revenues from consumption that is economically, environmentally and socially harmful.”
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
Another report by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, published in March, argues that debt entrapment in Africa also exacerbates gender injustice. Social consequences from fossil fuel extraction and use – such as displacement of communities or health harm from pollution – can have a substantial effect on local women while, at the same time, states face constraints to increasing social spending to support them.
“African women are facing disproportionate impacts of the fossil fuel industry’s long-running legacy of violence and dispossession,” the report says. “But they are also leading the resistance to it,” it adds, with women-led coalitions in places like Uganda or the Niger Delta challenging major oil and gas projects.
Policy recommendations
As governments head to Santa Marta – where “gaps in the financial and investment system” are on the agenda – the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative recommends building international coalitions to address debt, reforming multilateral financial institutions and increasing funding commitments from donor nations.
The proposed policies include debt cancellation as a way of creating fiscal space in the Global South, ending all international finance for fossil fuel expansion, establishing a binding mechanism on debt resolution at the UN, and advancing green industrialisation to replace fossil fuel revenues.
“To dismantle carbon lock-in and debt at source, we need to recognise collectively that the escalating debt in the Global South is actually an injustice,” said Sawas of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. “We have to name the problem and be honest with ourselves – and that’s where the recommendation of debt cancellation is so critical.”
Comment: Broken debt system must be fixed to confront future climate shocks
As part of the new climate finance goal adopted at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, governments have already agreed to “remove barriers and address dis-enablers” faced by developing countries, including “limited fiscal space” and “unsustainable debt levels”.
Building on this, any plan for a global roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, such as the initiative proposed at COP30 by more than 80 governments, should address the debt crisis in the Global South, Sawas said. One alternative could be financing the rollout of renewables with more public grants rather than loans, she added.
“We need to start properly funding renewable energy and diversification,” she said. “Currently it’s almost impossible for a lot of countries in the Global South to actually make the energy transition, because there’s no support structure.”
The post To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap” appeared first on Climate Home News.
To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”
China exported a record amount of solar components and photovoltaic panels last month, signalling that manufacturers are benefiting from stronger demand for clean energy technologies as the Iran war has caused oil and gas prices to soar and threatens supply shortages.
The world’s second largest economy exported solar panels, cells and wafers capable of generating 68 gigawatts (GW) in March – the equivalent of Spain’s entire solar capacity, according to analysis of data from Chinese customs authority by global energy think-tank Ember.
March’s volume was more than double exports in February and 49% more than the previous record set in August 2025. Three-quarters of the increase came from exports to Asia and Africa.
As well as the Middle East conflict, a rush by Chinese manufacturers to export solar modules and cells before an export tax rebate ended on April 1 – adding 9% to solar panel costs – was a major driver of the export spike.
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Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?
Renewable energy developer Karl Boyce talks to Climate Home News about China’s VAT rebate cuts and the biggest challenges for Africa’s efforts to boost energy access -
Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say
As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence -
Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift
Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance
“The volumes exported are absolutely gigantic,” Euan Graham, senior analyst at Ember, told Climate Home News.
“We will see over the coming months how much of that was linked to the tax rebate and how much of that is additional demand – that might vary by region. But certainly a big part of this is the response to the energy crisis,” he said.
China ends tax rebate on solar exports
For Qi Qin, China analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, March’s export surge was most likely driven by the end of the tax rebate, which brought forward demand, with high energy prices bolstering the trend.
“Policy deadlines can create a sharp one-month jump in export, while by comparison, higher oil and gas prices caused by the war are… more likely to support demand over the medium term rather than explain such a strong spike in one single month,” she told Climate Home News.
Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced that the solar export tax discount was coming to an end in an effort to prevent trade disputes and cut-throat competition for low-price exports among Chinese manufacturers.
In a note at the time, Trivium China, an analysis firm that specialises in monitoring Chinese government policy, said Beijing had become frustrated with state tax resources being used to subsidise overseas consumers. “The rebate end date is all but certain to trigger one of the largest module production booms in history” to beat the April export price hike, it said.
Solar manufacturing booms outside China
Across the world, 50 countries set records for Chinese solar imports in March, while a further 60 saw the highest import levels in six months. Chinese solar exports to Africa reached 10GW last month, a 176% increase compared with the previous month while exports to Asia doubled to 39GW.
The increase is partly driven by growing solar manufacturing and assembly capacity outside China, as countries seek to produce more of their own solar capacity as well as export panels to other markets. In October last year, Chinese exports of solar cells and wafers overtook already assembled solar panels. In March alone, Chinese solar panel exports reached 32 GW while cells and wafers exports amounted to 36 GW.
India, which is rapidly building out a solar manufacturing industry, is increasingly importing wafers from China, which can be manufactured domestically into solar cells and assembled into panels. Chinese solar exports to India were up 141% in March compared to February.
In Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia all imported over 1GW of solar for the first time in a single month, predominantly in the form of solar cells that are then assembled into panels. Exports to Nigeria, which is seeking to significantly ramp up its solar assembly capacity, rocketed 519% – the largest percentage increase.
“We’ve eagerly awaited the first signs of how countries around the world are responding to the energy crisis and this is just the first piece of evidence we have. The full effects of it will be revealing themselves for months to come, both in terms of the immediate consumer response and also more structural government policy changes,” said Graham of Ember.
The post China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites appeared first on Climate Home News.
China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites
American Efficient says it was helping incentivize energy savings at major companies. One member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said that the company’s “entire business is a scam.”
This story was published in partnership with The Assembly.
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