‘Prioritise adaptation’

FORMER CLIMATE change negotiator for Jamaica, Dr Orville Grey, has noted the value of the current global stocktake (GST) of climate actions, while emphasising the need for greater efforts at scaled-up adaptation.

“In the run-up to the end of a two-year process, the urgency of action remains a core if not sore point for small island developing states. Unfortunately, many are resigned to the thought that it will be more about ‘expressing concerns’ than committing real resources for greater climate change ambition. As time goes by the needs increase,” he said.

“The technical dialogues held so far underscore there have been significant, but inadequate, collective progress towards achieving the long-term goals set by the Paris Agreement. Countries have demonstrated a broad commitment towards coherent and holistic national adaptation planning processes – and extensive information on adaptation actions, policies, and goals, tailored to national and subnational needs, are reflected in countries’ National Adaptation Plans,” he added.

Still, Grey, who is the new Head of Secretariat for the NAP Global Network, said “the transition from planning to implementation remain slow, uneven, and incremental, and there is only modest progress on adaptation and risk management”.

The GST, currently under way, is to evaluate global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius, build resilience to climate impacts, and align finance flows with needed efforts to address the climate crisis. The process began at the UN Climate Conference in 2021 (COP26) and should conclude at the upcoming UN climate conference later this year.

“Challenges and gaps remain and these impede the ambition of countries particularly on adaptation. The provision of support and the adaptation finance flows are not necessarily aligned with the level of adaptation commensurate to the level of impact communities are experiencing or will likely experience,” said Grey.

INVEST IN ADAPTATION

For one thing, the former negotiator said developing countries continue to experience barriers to finance, and in particular for adaptation. It is necessary, too, he said, to invest time and resources to monitor and evaluate adaptation.

“Data availability and capacity to analyse and use climate information continues to be a major challenge and barrier to enhancing adaptation ambition. More support is required to establish functioning and sustainable monitoring, evaluation and learning for adaptation systems,” he said.

“The formulation of National Adaptation Plans are often too high-level and require clear targets and action plans, and need to be linked to local and regional policies in a more integrated, multi-sectoral, and gender responsive and gender transformative manner,” added Grey, who was previously with the Green Climate Fund as the regional manager for the Caribbean.

However, he said that there are some opportunities.

“High-level political buy-in can and has provided support towards adaptation. This allows for mainstreaming of adaptation through systems/process in countries and regions. Climate risks and adaptation need to be given a more high-level profile within governments’ institutional arrangements to promote coherence and integrated action,” he said.

“Bridging the adaptation finance gap is paramount to enhancing adaptation ambition and actions. Financial flows required should be realigned to steer away from maladaptation and towards mainstreaming adaptation into decision-making in order to support iterative and sustained adaptation actions, and scaling up where appropriate,” Grey maintained.

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