The world’s poorest countries renewed a call for the COP30 summit to set a new goal to triple finance for them to cope with the impacts of global warming, warning that an expected decision on how to measure climate adaptation progress in Belém would be fruitless without more money.
Since the mid-year climate talks in Bonn, the Least-Developed Countries (LDC) group has been asking for a new finance target to be set with a 2030 deadline to help them become more resilient to extreme weather and rising seas. They upped their ask in the run-up to COP30 to $120 billion a year, which is three times the current goal of at least $40 billion by 2025.
Speaking to journalists in Belem on Tuesday, Lina Yassin, a Sudanese adviser to the LDCs, said adaptation metrics alone – one of the key outcomes due at COP30 – are necessary but would not benefit vulnerable countries if they cannot fund adaptation projects.
“Indicators don’t rebuild our washed-away villages. They don’t fix our failed harvest. Indicators only show you what’s going on – so beyond indicators, we’re asking for adaptation finance,” she said. So far “we have not heard enough support for it” at COP30, she added.
On Tuesday evening, the COP30 president reiterated that adaptation is central to the success of COP30, adding that the push for an increase in resources for adaptation is “significant”.
Huge gap between funding and needs
The metrics being discussed at COP30 are seen as key to putting into practice the Global Goal on Adaptation, which was enshrined in the Paris Agreement a decade ago, but has yet to achieve much on the ground.
“We still don’t know how to achieve that goal,” Yassin said. “If you ask me about the [1.5C] temperature target, we know we’re not on track. If you ask me, how are we doing on adaptation, no one here can tell me the answer.”
A UN report issued in the run-up to COP30 said developing countries will need to spend between $310 billion and $365 billion per year on measures to adapt to climate change impacts by 2035, warning of a massive funding shortfall as wealthy governments pare back their support.
The latest estimate of developing countries’ annual climate adaptation needs outstrips current funding by at least 12 times, with rich nations providing just $26 billion in 2023, according to the annual Adaptation Gap Report.
If current trends continue, developed countries are set to miss the target to double adaptation finance by 2025 that they committed to at COP26 four years ago, UNEP’s report said.
Global South’s climate adaptation bill to top $300 billion a year by 2035: UN
On Monday, a fundraising session for the UN’s Adaptation Fund raised less than half of its minimum target of $300 million, while it has a pipeline of $700 million in unfunded projects. This marks the third year in a row the fund’s target will be missed, unless more pledges are made before the end of COP30.
Its head said the fund “faces unprecedented demand for its work, and can receive funds from a variety of sources, so we are also hopeful others will come forward in the coming days.”
Indicators seen as putting burden on vulnerable
Technical experts have been working for the past two years under the climate talks to produce a list of around 100 metrics to track efforts towards broad targets to boost climate resilience in seven areas: farming and food, water and sanitation, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, livelihoods and cultural heritage.
Those were decided at COP28 in Dubai in 2023 in a text that also included what is called the “means of implementation”, which covers finance, technical support and building countries’ ability to adapt. Rich countries have pushed back against including specific targets on funding under the Global Goal on Adaptation.
As a result, some country groups – mainly African and Arab nations – have proposed at COP30 to postpone the adoption of the proposed indicators for two years, arguing they cannot sign up to measure progress they cannot afford to make with their own resources. In addition, they say the indicators risk imposing approaches that should be decided by the countries themselves.
Comment: Global Goal on Adaptation – Weighing the cow won’t make it fatter
Harjeet Singh, a climate activist and founding director of India’s Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said the Africa Group and other developing nations were right to draw a red line on the current draft text in Belem, which he called “a trap”.
“It shifts the burden onto developing nations to fund their own adaptation while letting historical polluters like the US, EU, Australia, Canada, and others off the hook,” he told Climate Home News.
Aichetou Seck of Senegal, a technical lead for adaptation with the LDCs, said African countries do not want to block the process, as adaptation is a key priority for them. Rather, she said, they are seeking to ensure first that they have concrete ways to make progress, including adequate finance.
How could a new target land in Belém?
One observer of the adaptation talks told Climate Home News the call for a tripling of adaptation finance could be positioned instead in the main Mutirão decision, which is likely to form the backbone of the political package due to be agreed in Belem.
Currently, a draft version includes that as an option, together with a process to track progress towards it. But another – favoured by rich nations – only acknowledges the need to “dramatically scale up adaptation finance” without mentioning a number.
COP30 Bulletin Day 8: Draft decision draws battle lines on fossil fuel transition, finance and trade
Some observers and negotiators say a possible compromise could involve specifying a dedicated adaptation funding target within the $300-billion-a-year UN climate finance goal agreed at COP29 last year, rather than creating a separate pledge.
“We want support from the world, because without an adaptation package, without an outcome that doesn’t just give us indicators, it also gives us money, everything we’re discussing here is symbolic,” said Yassin of Sudan. “We will go back home and nothing tomorrow will change.”
The post Poorest countries appeal for more adaptation finance at COP30 appeared first on Climate Home News.
Poorest countries appeal for more adaptation finance at COP30
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.