Developing nations will need at least $310bn a year by 2030 to mitigate climate crisis

Adaptation finance for developing nations could exceed $310 billion annually by 2035, highlighting a significant funding gap, warns the UN's Adaptation Gap Report 2025.

Adaptation finance -- money needed to help developing countries mitigate the impact of the climate crisis -- in developing countries by 2035 are likely to be over $310 billion per year , 12 times as much as current international public adaptation finance flows,the Adaptation Gap Report 2025: ‘Running on Empty’ has flagged.

International public adaptation finance flows to developing countries were $26 billion in 2023, down from $28 billion the previous year. (AFP)

International public adaptation finance flows to developing countries were $26 billion in 2023, down from $28 billion the previous year. This leaves an adaptation finance gap of $284-339 billion per year – 12 to 14 times as much as current flows, the report by the United Nations Environment Programme added.

And based on extrapolated needs expressed in Nationally Determined Contributions (emission reduction targets) and National Adaptation Plans, the adaptation finance needed rises to $365 billion a year.

If current trends in financing do not turn around quickly, the Glasgow Climate Pact goal (during the COP26 climate conference) of doubling international public adaptation finance from 2019 levels to approximately $40 billion by 2025 will not be achieved.

During COP29 in Baku, the New Collective Quantified Goal decided developed nations would provide at least $300 billion per year by 2035 for climate action in developing countries. However, this financing target includes both mitigation and adaptation and is clearly insufficient to close the finance gap

“Meanwhile, if the estimated adaptation finance needs of $310-365 billion in 2035 were adjusted for inflation at an annual rate of 3% (a figure in line with near-term projections), they would increase to $440-520 billion,” the report states.

“Climate impacts are accelerating. Yet adaptation finance is not keeping pace, leaving the world’s most vulnerable exposed to rising seas, deadly storms, and searing heat,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in his message accompanying the report. “This is not just a funding gap, it is a failure of global solidarity. It is measured in flooded homes, failed harvests, derailed development – and lost lives. As the climate crisis deepens and costs climb, the world must move much faster to match rising needs.”

The focus is now moving to how COP30 in Belem could address the gaping hole in adaptation finance.

“COP 30 in Brazil must deliver a global action plan to ensure developing countries have the resources and capacity to protect their people, strengthen food and water security, and build resilience across every sector of development. That includes developed countries honouring their overdue pledge to double adaptation finance, and all financial actors moving forward on the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap – mobilizing $1.3 trillion a year by 2035, with a fair, predictable share for adaptation, and ensuring that new finance does not increase debt burdens,” Guterres said.

“The private sector must step up – investing far more in resilience and adaptation. Fossil-fuel profits must help fund the recovery from the damage they have caused. Multilateral development banks must mobilize far more private affordable finance and devote half of their climate funding to adaptation. Public finance must also become faster and simpler to access,reaching the communities on the frontlines when and where it is needed most,” he added.

The lack of resources, action and global attention will result in higher global long-term temperatures and associated climate impacts and risks. “Yet investments in climate action far outweigh the costs of inaction. For instance, every $1 spent on coastal protection avoids $14 in damages; urban nature-based solutions reduce ambient temperatures by over 1°C on average, a significant improvement during the summer heat; and health-related capacity-building can further reduce symptoms of heat stress,” the report said.

Some 172 countries have at least one national adaptation policy, strategy or plan in place; only four countries have not started developing a plan yet, according to the report.

However, 36 of the 172 countries possess instruments that are outdated or have not been updated in at least a decade. This should be addressed to minimize the possibility of maladaptation. In the Biennial Transparency Reports – submitted under the Paris Agreement to outline progress in meeting climate pledges – countries reported on over 1,600 implemented adaptation actions, mostly on biodiversity, agriculture, water and infrastructure. However, few countries are reporting on actual outcomes and impacts, which are needed to assess their effectiveness and adequacy. Meanwhile, support for new projects under the Adaptation Fund, the Global Environment Facility and the Green Climate Fund grew to nearly $920 million in 2024. This is an increase of 86% over the five-year moving average of $494 million between 2019 and 2023.

HT has reported that India has finalised its first national adaptation plan which is likely to be unveiled ahead of or at the UN Climate Meeting (COP30) at Belem, Brazil. The national adaptation plan and an update to India’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) for the 2035 period are currently under review and expected to be taken up for Cabinet approval very soon, people familiar with the matter said.

Adaptation will be a central issue at COP30 in Brazil’s Belem, with parties expected to agree on adaptation indicators and work to close the adaptation finance gap, UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell said on October 20.

“The road map to mobilise $1.3 trillion in climate finance will clearly be key at COP30. Let us be very clear: climate finance is not charity. It is vital for protecting every population and economy, and the global supply chains that every nation depends on for low-inflationary growth, and food and energy security,” Stiell said as he released a progress report on the national adaptation plan (NAP).

“This report confirms a staggering betrayal. The adaptation finance gap is a death sentence for communities on the frontline. For decades, the developing world has been told to prepare for a crisis they didn’t cause. They have done their homework—172 countries now have adaptation plans—but rich nations have offered only lip service, with finance flows decreasing last year.

This monumental gap—now at least 12 times what is provided—is the direct cause of lost lives, destroyed homes, and shattered livelihoods. This is a deliberate political choice by rich countries to abandon the developing world to climate impacts they had no role in causing. It is the very definition of climate injustice,” said Harjeet Singh, Climate Activist and Founding Director, Satat Sampada Climate Foundation.

Some Global North countries expanded oil and gas

Just four Global North countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Norway, are overwhelmingly responsible for blocking global progress on phasing out oil and gas production, a new analysis by Oil Change International titled Planet Wreckers: Global North Countries Fueling the Fire Since the Paris Agreement.

Oil and gas expansion by these countries between 2015 and 2024 ,caused total global output to rise since the Paris Agreement. Global North countries on the whole have failed to pay the climate finance they owe, slowing climate action in the rest of the world while protecting the profits of key drivers of the climate crisis: polluters and the super-rich, the analysis said.

Between 2015 and 2024, the US, Canada, Australia, and Norway, collectively increased their oil and gas production by nearly 40%, adding over 14 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (barrels of oil equivalent per day). In the same period, extraction in the rest of the world fell by 2%, cumulatively. This contrast is striking and critically important as nations prepare to converge at COP30 to negotiate the next phase of the global climate agenda.

“Ten years ago in Paris, countries promised to limit warming to 1.5°C, which is impossible

without putting an end to fossil fuel expansion and production. The rich countries most

responsible for the climate crisis have not kept that promise. Instead, they’ve poured more fuel

on the fire and withheld the funds needed to put it out. The fact that a handful of rich Global North countries, led by the United States, have massively driven up their oil and gas production while people around the world suffer the consequences is a blatant mockery of justice and equity. These countries have a moral and legal obligation to move first to phase out fossil fuels, and deliver the trillions needed in climate finance on fair terms to the Global South. Anything less is a betrayal of science and abdication of responsibility,” said Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International.