If only it was all like Adaptation. As controversies rage around us, your ECO Adaptation correspondent sits in the calm of the sort of gentle, collaborative and determined consensus building that should characterise all climate negotiations. If only.
Adaptation is the quiet giant of the convention. The Nairobi Work Programme, the Adaptation Fund, National Adaptation Plans, the Global Goal and the work of the Adaptation Committee to bring it all together carry on in multiple talks this week.
That this is the first article dedicated to adaptation in seven issues of ECO indicates that things might be going pretty well
Not that there aren’t challenges. Parties will know that reporting on needs and progress on adaptation is difficult when there isn’t an agreed definition of adaptation.
There are multiple difficulties – methodological, empirical, conceptual and political – in assessing the reduction of vulnerability and increase of adaptation capacity and resilience that are the Global Goals.
And, as ever, poorer countries face insufficiency of resources and data to improve adaptation planning, and implementation obstructs everything.
But these are challenges to be overcome, difficulties that can be resolved with some transformative thinking.
Why not measure countries’ progress by assessing the extent to which they have exercised the Global Commission’s Principles for Locally Led Adaptation, evidenced by participatory impact monitoring and evaluation?
Why not commit half that fabulous US$100 billion per year to adaptation, and ensure that the largest chunk goes to the poorest and most vulnerable people and countries?
Why not ensure that Adaptation is front and centre, and that the hard working Adaptation Committee is not further burdened, by establishing a work plan and resources for operationalising the Global Goal on Adaptation under the implementation mechanism for the Paris Agreement?
Time for us all to adapt.