What could happen at COP27? What can it mean for EU support to adaptation?

As climate change impacts are getting stronger and more visible, with particularly dramatic consequences in less developed countries, there is a growing sense of urgency regarding the need to strengthen adaptation action. At COP26 in 2021:

• Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change were requested to at least double (from 2019 levels) the provision of climate finance for adaptation to developing countries by 2025, while continuing deliberations on setting a new collective quantified goal on climate finance for developing countries in excess of the previous target of USD 100 billion annually by 2020 (which was not achieved).
  
   
• In response to a lack of progress on defining and operationalising the Paris Agreement’s ‘global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change’, a two-year Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh work programme on the global goal on adaptation was adopted to:
  • foster the implementation of this goal
  • help improve the assessment of progress toward adaptation, notably through work on suitable methodologies, indicators and data
  • help signatories enhance the planning and implementation of their adaptation actions (through national adaptation plans or similar processes), better communicate on their adaptation priorities, actions and support needs (in line with the Paris Agreement’s requirement for signatories to submit adaptation communications), and establish robust systems for monitoring and evaluating adaptation actions (which should contribute to operationalising the adaptation component of the agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework).
    
     
• In recognition of the need for scaling up support for activities to avert, minimize and address loss and damage (i.e. reduce and manage climate-related disaster risks), a two-year Glasgow Dialogue was established to discuss possible funding arrangements and signatories agreed to operationalise and fund the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, which was established at COP25 to catalyse the provision of demand-driven technical assistance and facilitate collaboration, knowledge sharing and access by developing countries to support in this area.
  
   

 ©EU GCCA+ Ethiopia

At COP27, developed countries will report on progress towards increasing the allocation and effective delivery of finance for adaptation and the technical bodies in charge of managing the Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh work programme and the Glasgow Dialogue will report on first-year achievements and plans for next year. This COP will be held in Egypt, which raises expectations that adaptation in general and the African continent’s needs in particular will get major attention.

On adaptation finance, the EU intends to remain a global leader. For the 2021 to 2027 period, it aims to dedicate 35 % of its external cooperation budget to climate-relevant expenditures (adaptation and mitigation). Specific efforts were made during the programming exercise to mainstream adaptation on a par with mitigation in indicative multiannual programmes. The EU must now deliver ‘quality finance’ for adaptation by ensuring that adaptation objectives and activities feature prominently in individual cooperation actions, wherever opportunities exist – and that adaptation results are adequately monitored in support of ongoing learning.

In this regard, a review is underway of the EU’s experience in the field of monitoring and evaluation of adaptation, which was acquired through the Global Climate Change Alliance (Plus) (GCCA/GCCA+) initiative. The lessons learnt and identified good practices will be the topics of an upcoming publication.

Catherine Paul, GCCA+ technical expert