COP30 highlights need for nations to boost resilience amid weather extremes

With typhoons tearing across Southeast Asia this week while areas of Jamaica and Brazil are still clearing debris from damaging storms, delegates at Brazil’s COP30 summit began grappling with how best to help the vulnerable withstand worsening weather and other climate extremes.

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The topic of “adaptation” has grown more important as countries fail to rein in climate-warming emissions enough to prevent extreme warming linked to increasingly frequent weather disasters across the planet.

A UN report in October said developing countries alone would need up to US$310 billion ($404 billion) every year by 2035 to prepare.

Where that money will come from is unclear. Ten of the world’s development banks, under pressure to free more cash for climate action, said on Nov 10 they would continue to support the need.

“Lives, well-being and jobs cannot be sustained where homes, schools, farms and businesses are under threat from flooding, drought or other climate extremes,” the banks said in a statement.

In 2024, they channelled more than US$26 billion to lowand middle-income economies for adaptation.

Separately, the director of a multi-partner UN fund said it would soon announce a new impact bond aimed at raising US$200 million by the end of 2026.