Money for Climate Adaptation: Destructive Austerity

While many countries in the Global South need more and more money to adapt to the consequences of climate change, support payments from the Global North are almost stagnating. This is shown by this year's Adaptation Gap Report from the UN Environment Program (Unep), in German: the report on the adaptation gap, which was presented on Wednesday.

Accordingly, these countries would need $305 billion in support annually for their investments in climate adaptation measures. This means, for example: to make hospitals heat-proof, to protect coasts from rising sea levels or to adapt water supplies to more frequent droughts. If the climate resilience of the private sector is taken into account, the need even doubles, according to UNEP.

The report appears against the backdrop of ever-increasing global warming. Because humanity continues to burn oil, gas and coal, clear forests and drain moors, the planet is currently heading towards a warming of 2.5 to 2.8 degrees. The heating of around 1.4 degrees that has already been caused is claiming victims worldwide: Most recently, a typhoon in Japan killed 17 people, fueled by rising sea temperatures. Climate change also made the monstrous landslide in Nepal, which caused flash floods and killed at least 1,400 people, more likely.

The industrialized countries, which are responsible for the majority of CO₂ emissions, have committed themselves to financial support for the countries of the Global South in various UN climate agreements. However, they only gave $28.2 to $31.7 billion for climate adaptation measures in 2024. That is 1 billion more than the year before, but only about a tenth of what would be necessary according to UNEP.

At the UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, industrialized countries promised to contribute $40 billion to adaptation financing in the Global South by 2025. This goal could still be achieved, writes UNEP in the report, because the development banks made $9 billion more available for climate adaptation in poorer countries in 2025 than in the previous year. The other data in the UNEP report refers to 2024.

In Belém, Brazil, the industrialized countries promised during the UN climate conference there last year to triple their adaptation financing by 2035. Depending on how this goal is interpreted, they would then have to pay between $85 and $120 billion. However, UNEP warns that this sum is far smaller than necessary. According to the authors of the Adaptation Gap Report, developing countries will need $420 billion in support from the Global North by 2035 to adapt to global warming.

Sabine Minninger, adaptation expert at the development organization Bread for the World, calls the UNEP report “sad proof that the industrialized countries, as the main cause of the climate crisis, are abandoning the Global South with the consequences.” Minninger also criticizes the federal government: “Instead of providing 6 billion euros annually for climate protection and adaptation from 2025 onwards, as promised, only 4.7 billion euros have so far flowed.”

The UNEP points out that not only are funds for protection against climate disasters scarce, but also the funds available for reconstruction after storms, floods and heat waves: The fund for damage and losses, which was set up at the UN climate conference in 2022, only contained $ 342 million last summer - but applications from affected countries amounted to $ 2.8 billion.

As in previous years, the topic of climate adaptation will also play a role at the approaching UN climate conference in Antalya. Greenpeace is calling on the federal government to commit to a binding financing roadmap in Antalya that will triple the funding for adaptation measures by 2035.

In order to combat the causes of climate change, however, it is “just as urgent to drastically reduce emissions in all sectors,” warns Greenpeace climate expert Jannes Stoppel.