At a COP30 event in Belem, Brazil, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen urged world leaders to “fill up the adaptation finance tank”, warning that developing nations will require between $310 billion and $365 billion annually by 2035 to cope with worsening climate impacts.
Andersen’s remarks came at COP30, widely described as the ‘Adaptation COP’, amid concerns that the adaptation finance pledge made at the Glasgow summit – to double funding to $40 billion a year by 2025 – remains a distant goal. The latest UN report shows that instead of rising, adaptation finance actually declined from $28 billion to $26 billion in 2023.
“We should already have achieved it by now. Clearly, we’re not where we need to be. We need to see finance flow again – and that’s not happening,” she said.
The UNEP adaptation gap report, titled ‘Running on Empty’, was recently published, revealing that current adaptation finance flows are 12 to 14 times lower than the estimated needs.
In addition to the real risk of missing the 2025 targets, the report warns that the new $300 billion annual climate finance goal (NCQG) remains insufficient to meet global adaptation requirements.
While 172 countries now have a national adaptation plan, strategy or policy in place, implementation continues to lag. UNEP’s analysis of country reports identifies over 1,600 adaptation actions, yet most focus on reporting outputs rather than outcomes and impacts – making it difficult to assess their effectiveness.
“On emissions, we understand now that with our current policies, we are heading towards a 2.8°C world. If we take into account the new NDCs – both the conditional ones and the unconditional ones – that brings us somewhere between 2.4°C and 2.3°C, give or take. That’s still not the world we want to be in,” Andersen said.
South Asia, particularly Bangladesh, ranks among the regions with the highest adaptation finance needs. Of the billions required annually, Bangladesh receives only around one percent of its estimated need, according to Change Initiative. UNEP reports that South Asia as a whole requires approximately $112 billion in adaptation finance.
Agriculture and food, water supply, and infrastructure and buildings collectively account for the majority of reported adaptation finance needs in the region.
In Bangladesh’s coastal belt, for instance, thousands of hectares of cultivable land have been invaded by saline intrusion from rising sea levels, irreversibly damaging their capacity to produce crops.
The country spends significant resources on researching and developing salinity-resistant crop varieties and distributing them to farmers.
Those living on the frontline of climate change continue to suffer, as their properties and livelihoods are repeatedly destroyed, forcing them to start over time and again.
“As the adaptation finance gap grows wider, the willingness of countries to support the climate-vulnerable seems to be diminishing,” Anju Sharma, Global Lead for Locally Led Adaptation at the Global Center on Adaptation, told The Business Standard.
“It is a moral imperative for the global community not only to provide adaptation finance, but to do so in a way that ensures it reaches those most in need,” she added.
Climate activist Harjeet Singh, founder of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said there are two key streams of discussions on adaptation – finalising the indicators of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and addressing the adaptation finance gap.
Countries have spent two years identifying 100 indicators, and the current debate is whether to narrow them down and how they should be used. These indicators refer to measurable benchmarks – such as climate-resilient infrastructure, water security, early warning systems, and health system readiness – to track how well countries are adapting to climate change.
However, Harjeet said developing countries fear that if these indicators are finalised without adequate financial support, they will face undue pressure to deliver adaptation results without sufficient international funding.
“So, that is a genuine fear that developed countries are shifting the burden of adaptation entirely on developing countries without providing any finance and then they will be held accountable for not meeting those parameters or indicators that are going to be finalised,” he said.
He added that developing nations need over $300 billion to help countries and communities adapt, but developed countries are “avoiding every conversation” and have failed to meet their target of doubling adaptation finance by 2025.
“Unless and until developed countries meet their commitment of doubling adaptation finance and provide grant-based finance to developing countries, talking about MDBs playing that role – which is only in the form of loans – is absolutely unacceptable. That’s like a double jeopardy for developing countries… and that is absolutely climate injustice and we will not accept that.”
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen, however, sees a glimmer of hope, noting that “countries are recognising that adaptation truly matters,” and that “it’s no longer just about mitigation.”
This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.