Adaptation Gap Report 2021

Adaptation Gap Report 2021: Relevance

• GS 3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

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Adaptation Gap Report 2021: Context

• UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has released a new report titled, “Adaptation Gap Report 2021: The Gathering Storm” where it has called for urgent efforts to increase the financing and implementation of actions designed to adapt to the growing impacts of climate change.

Adaptation Gap Report 2021: Key points

• The report has found that while policies and planning are growing for climate change adaptation, financing and implementation are still far behind where they need to be.
• As the world looks to step up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions – efforts that are still not anywhere strong.

Adaptation Gap Report 2021: Key findings

Financing of adaptation remains weak

• The report finds that the costs of adaptation are likely in the higher end of an estimated USD 140-300 billion per year by 2030 and USD 280-500 billion per year by 2050 for developing countries only.

COVID-19 opportunity being missed

• Fewer than one-third of 66 countries studied had explicitly funded COVID-19 measures to address climate risks as of June 2021.
• At the same time, the heightened cost of servicing debt, combined with decreased government revenues, may hamper future government spending on adaptation, particularly in developing countries.

Some progress in planning and implementation

• Around 79 per cent of countries have adopted at least one national-level adaptation planning instrument, such as a plan, strategy, policy or law.
• This is an increase of seven per cent since 2020.

More action needed

• The world needs to scale up public adaptation finance through direct investment and by overcoming barriers to private sector involvement.
• The report also found that governments should use the fiscal recovery from the pandemic to prioritize interventions that achieve both economic growth and climate change resilience.

Recently released climate related reports

• Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution Report by UNEP
• Production Gap Report 2021
• Climate Transparency Report 2021
• Ecological Threat Report 2021
• State of Climate Services Report 2021

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