NewsAdaptation Fund head laments “puzzling” lack of pledges at COP29

Adaptation Fund head laments “puzzling” lack of pledges at COP29

Even as leaders highlight the urgency of protecting people from more extreme weather and rising seas, they have been reluctant to pay up at COP29 for the measures needed

From the floods that have swept through Spain to typhoons battering the Philippines, extreme weather is hitting the world hard – but even after years of warnings about the need to adapt to the perils of a hotter world, vulnerable countries and communities are unlikely to get much immediate help from the COP29 climate summit, officials told Climate Home.  

There’s a “great paradox” in evidence at the UN summit in Azerbaijan between leaders’ speeches urgently calling to keep people safe from worsening climate change impacts – and the apparent lack of money available to do that, Mikko Ollikainen, the head of the Adaptation Fund, said in an interview.

The UN fund – which has been at the cutting edge of efforts to build resilience to extreme weather and rising seas for the last 15 years – only managed to secure contributions of around $61 million from donor countries at a fundraising event on Thursday, against its annual goal of $300 million.

COP29: We need to adapt to climate chaos now

This despite exhortations from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN climate chief Simon Stiell at the start of COP29 for rich countries to fill the huge gap in adaptation funding, which could reach $187 billion-$359 billion a year by 2030.

“These missing dollars are not abstractions on a balance sheet: they are lives taken, harvests lost, and development denied,” said Guterres.

While there’s still time for more governments to come forward with new financial pledges before the end of COP29, Ollikainen said mid-way through the talks that “this year the situation looks quite difficult”.

Activists call for the provision of finance for adaptation at the COP29 UN <a href=climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan” width=”800″ height=”600″/>

Activists call for the provision of finance for adaptation at the COP29 UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 16, 2024. (Photo: Climate Home/Megan Rowling)

“Contributor governments [are] almost all talking about the importance of adaptation – and quite a few of them are recognising the need for grant-based financing for adaptation especially – so it’s puzzling how that relates to the reality of there not being new pledges to the Adaptation Fund or adaptation funds in general,” he told Climate Home on the sidelines of the COP.

The reason for donor governments’ reluctance to make fresh pledges is unclear, but they may be waiting to see the outcome of the tough negotiations on a new climate finance goal (called the NCQG) at COP29 before deciding on where to put their cash.

Projects backed by the Adaptation Fund range from helping smallholder farmers protect their harvests from droughts and floods, to reducing the effects of hotter and higher seas on coastal villages, and making schools stronger against disasters, across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

At last year’s climate conference in Dubai,

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