Work faster, be flexible:11th-hr push for fossil fuel deal

Draft paper lists adaptation targets for 2030 but disagreement lingers

- 

Just two days before the UN climate talks here are scheduled to end, negotiators on Sunday released a draft document to guide countries' efforts to adapt to climate change and monitor collective progress. However, it falls short of expectations.

The Paris Agreement in 2015 introduced the concept of a Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), a parallel to the global mitigation goal aimed at limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius as compared to pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels.

Unlike mitigation, where progress can be tracked using a single metric, adaptation requires a more complex approach.

The Glasgow-Sharm El-Sheikh Work Programme on the Global Goal on Adaptation, initiated at COP26 in Egypt, started a series of workshops and negotiations to establish an operational framework for the GGA at COP28.

Though the document acknowledged that the finance required for adaptation "remains insufficient" and the gap between the funds available and the actual financial support needed is "widening", it doesn't quantify anything.