| HotSpots H2O: World Spending on Climate Adaptation Must Increase Five- or Tenfold
The world doesn’t spend nearly enough adapting to the risks of climate change, a U.N. report found.
According to the U.N Environment Program’s Adaptation Gap report, there is a huge gulf between what communities are spending to prepare for rising seas and ferocious droughts and what they ought to spend. This gap is widening, as the costs of climate adaptation increase due to rising global temperatures.
A growing body of scientific research shows that even if society were to halt emissions overnight, a certain amount of atmospheric warming—and accompanying environmental risks—would still occur. National commitments made last week at the COP26 climate conference to cut heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions would warm the planet by 1.8 degrees Celsius, according to the International Energy Agency. That is more ambitious than earlier pledges, but it still exceeds the Paris agreement goal of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
As a result, climate adaptation looms large over the ongoing U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, where the report was released. Global climate finance has emerged as a key tension, as many vulnerable nations say they simply do not have the resources to curb emissions or adapt to climate change absent financial support. The Covid-19 pandemic has only added strain on the most vulnerable. | 