UN climate chief calls for innovative financing, tech aid to support national climate plans

New Delhi: Parties must explore innovative financing mechanisms and provide the technical assistance countries need to formulate their national adaptation plans (NAPs), said UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell on Monday.

The remark comes as frequent and severe climate shocks like droughts, wildfires and floods not only cause loss of life and livelihood but also take up food inflation.

The UN climate summit’s previous, present and next hosts the UAE, Azerbaijan and Brazil in March jointly pledged to submit more ambitious national climate plans by early 2025.

This also holds importance as adaptation costs are skyrocketing for everyone, especially developing countries. Costs could rise to $340 billion annually by 2030, reaching as much as $565 billion by 2050, according to UN’s adaptation gap report 2022.

“NAPs are more necessary than ever. They are truly vital. This year, we saw how every bit of preparation – every policy, every plan – is the difference between life and death for millions of people around the world. Prudence demands we plan for the worst. Many of you know that these plans are not easy to put together. Resources are scarce, both funding and capacity – especially for those most vulnerable, in Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States,” Stiell said at a high-level event at COP29.

“People, communities, nations want to act, to protect themselves and their loved ones, to strengthen their businesses and economies – but they do not have the means. When nations can’t climate-proof their links in global supply chains, every nation in our interconnected global economy pays the price. And I mean literally pays the price, in the form of higher inflation, especially in food prices, as savage droughts, wildfires and floods rip through food production. We must flip this script,” he added.

Sark display of impact

The impact of climate change has been on stark display this year, from severe flooding in Brazil and East Africa to heatwaves in India, droughts in Mexico and Europe and wildfires in Canada. Record-breaking heat has claimed lives around the world, including 100 in India. These disasters are evidence that the world has not yet done nearly enough to halt the climate crisis.

Nations are also supposed to submit their NAPs by 2025.

The benefits of adaptation have the potential to be widespread and long-lasting. As global temperatures rise, NAPs remain the main vehicle for countries to systematically build resilience, enhance adaptive capacity, and reduce vulnerability to climate change. The NAP enables countries to identify and address their medium- and long-term priorities for adapting to climate change and establish the systems and capacities needed to make adaptation an integral part of their development planning, decision making, and budgeting.

The NAP was developed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010. Since then, technical guidelines have been developed, extensive capacity building undertaken, dedicated funding windows opened, and various support initiatives—such as the NAP Global Network—launched.

Mandated by a decision at COP26, countries are aiming at completing the NAP assessment at COP29 in Azerbaijan’s capital city Baku.

Importance of adaptation

The 29th Conference of the Parties or COP29 represents an opportunity to recognize the importance of adaptation and the NAP and the adaptation efforts of developing country parties, acknowledge the support provided and received for developing countries’ NAP processes, highlight challenges, obstacles, gaps, and needs faced by developing countries in the NAP process, and provide best practices and recommendations toward the future to enhance and scale up adaptation actions in developing countries, and transition countries’ NAP processes from planning to implementation.

“Business-as-usual won’t get us there. We need urgent action and transformation. Solutions, born out of the wealth of information and progress already made through existing adaptation efforts. We need data. Consultation. But we also need to build on the experience of communities around the world. Their lessons must serve as a strong foundation for comprehensive NAPs. We cannot ignore the adaptation elephant in the room: there is a stark financial gap we must bridge,” the UN climate change chief said.

“It’s clear that adaptation investments – at the right scale and pace – can be truly transformative not only protecting people and economies, but also driving forward much more opportunity, equality, and prosperity – minimizing loss and damage to lives and livelihoods. We can no longer rely on small streams of finance,” he added. “We need torrents of funding. They need to be easier to access, especially for the most vulnerable countries that often face the biggest barriers. We must explore innovative financing mechanisms and provide the technical assistance countries need to formulate their NAPs.”

Urging multilateral development banks (MDBs) to think beyond traditional grants and loans, Stiell said philanthropies, the private sector, and bilateral donors must step up with the urgency that this crisis demands, without increasing the debt burden of vulnerable countries. We must also work to minimize bureaucratic hurdles that so often stand in the way.”