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Adaptation Gap Report 2023

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Adaptation Gap Report 2023

Date

December, 2023

Author(s)

Henry Neufeldt
Lars Christiansen
Thomas Dale
Lasse Hemmingsen

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Abstract

Despite the clear signs of accelerating climate risks and impacts worldwide, the adaptation finance gap is widening and now stands at between US$194 billion and US$366 billion per year. Adaptation finance needs are 10–18 times as great as current international public adaptation finance flows – at least 50 per cent higher than previously estimated. This is the main conclusion of a comprehensive assessment of the literature and new analyses to provide updated estimates of the costs and needs of adaptation in developing countries, as well as the international finance flows required to address these needs. The report also provides updates on adaptation planning and implementation and concludes that global progress on adaptation is slowing rather than showing the urgently needed acceleration. In view of ever-increasing weather extremes such as a multi-year drought in East Africa, flooding in China and Europe, and extreme heat and wildfires in the United States of America and Canada, among others, narrowing the adaptation finance gap is of particular importance because of the high benefits that investments in adaptation can offer in terms of reducing climate risks and improving equity and climate justice. Left unchecked however, increasing climate risks will inevitably lead to more climate-related losses and damages. Therefore, the Adaptation Gap Report 2023 (AGR 2023) also focuses on loss and damage to support Parties in the negotiations following the decision at the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) in Sharm El-Sheikh to establish a loss and damage fund and funding arrangements for vulnerable developing countries.

Citation

Adaptation gap;Loss and damage;Resilience

Publisher

UNEP

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