With Hurricane Melissa powering its way through the Caribbean this week and leaving devastation in its path, the world has been reminded how extreme weather in the era of the climate crisis is causing devastation in developing countries.
But despite the impacts of climate change becoming clear for all to see - whether in storms, floods, wildfires, or droughts - the money available for developing countries to adapt to climate change is actually shrinking, according to a new report from the UN.
Foreign aid available for developing countries for climate adaptation fell from $28 billion (£21bn) in 2022 to $26bn in 2023, according to the 2025 edition of the ‘Adaptation Gap’ report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
The authors warned that future adaptation finance requirements will be approximately 12 to 14 times greater than what is currently available - with UNEP estimating that developing countries will require $310-365 billion in adaptation finance per year by 2035.
While the figures for 2024 and 2025 are not available, the prospects of the gap improving in the short-term look bleak, given how countries including the US and UK have been cutting their overseas aid budgets - and the US President Donald Trump announcing his intention to withdraw the US from all climate giving.
“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 response to the report’s findings.
“Adaptation is not a cost – it is a lifeline. Closing the adaptation gap is how we protect lives, deliver climate justice, and build a safer, more sustainable world. Let us not waste another moment.”
‘Climate adaptation’ is a far-reaching category in climate policy circles that includes everything from mangrove forests to protect coasts, to the distribution of seeds for drought-resistent crops, to the construction of flood defences.
How to generate more money for adaptation from public and private sources is set to be a key focus of the COP30 climate summit, which is to be hosted by the UN in Brazil next month.
Experts warn that with solar and wind power now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives in most markets, climate mitigation - or reducing greenhouse emissions - is far easier to achieve than climate adaptation, which has long been far more reliant on aid money.
The Adaptation Gap report comes off the back of bleak news that only 64 countries have submitted new plans to cut carbon over the next decade, the UN said this week, despite all countries being required to do so ahead of next month's COP30 summit.
The combined impact of these plans - which cover only 30 per cent of global emissions - falls far short of the emissions reduction required to limit global warming to 1.5C, which is the threshold that scientists consider ‘safe’.
Taken together, the plans would mean that global emissions of CO2 would only fall by around 10 per cent by 2035.
Last year, the 1.5C threshold was breached for a whole year for the first time.
This article was produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
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