Global Efforts to Adapt to the Impacts of Climate Are Lagging as Much as Efforts to Slow Emissions

January 20, 2021

22 July 2020, Saxony, Dresden: Wolfram Günther, Minister of the Environment of Saxony, is standing next to Eva Jähnigen (both Bündnis90/Die Grünen), Deputy for Environment and Municipal Economy of the state capital Dresden, on a green roof on the premises of Kunstraum Geh8. The occasion is the assessment of measures for adaptation to climate change in the state capital. Photo: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa (Photo by Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Along with promising to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow global warming, under the Paris climate agreement world leaders also agreed to prepare for its unavoidable and mounting impacts: the displacement of people and the destruction of communities and croplands by sea level rise, intensifying storms, drought, wildfire and famines.

But adaptation efforts are lagging just as much as efforts to reduce climate-warming emissions, United Nations Environmental Program director Inger Andersen said Thursday, during the release of the 2020 UNEP Adaptation Gap report.

While the coronavirus pandemic has distracted many countries from efforts to adapt to the changing climate, the report shows that investment in such efforts was already feeble.