Paris:

The world is far from ready to confront the “calamity” caused by climate change and must urgently prepare for worse in the future, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

Global efforts to adapt to climate change – from building defensive sea walls to planting drought-resistant crops – have failed to keep pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters.

Floods, fires and other weather shocks have hit almost every continent in a year that the EU’s climate watcher warns will almost certainly be the hottest on record.

The amount of money going to the poorest countries for adaptation measures was barely a tenth of what they needed to protect their vulnerable economies from disasters, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said ) in a new assessment for 2022, the latest year for which data is available. is available.

“Climate calamity is the new reality. And we are not keeping pace,” Guterres said at the launch of UNEP’s annual adaptation gap report.

Rich countries are under pressure at the UN’s COP29 summit this month to significantly increase the $100 billion they pledged for climate action in developing countries, including for adaptation.

But some donor governments are under budgetary and political pressure, and no major new commitments of public money are expected at the conference in Azerbaijan.

This month’s UN biodiversity meeting failed to reach a funding deal and the election of Donald Trump, who opposes global climate cooperation, weighs on COP29 .

No one is safe

Most public money spent on climate change goes toward reducing emissions that cause global warming, without adapting to its long-term consequences.

Some $28 billion in public funding has been provided to developing countries for climate adaptation in 2022.

This is an increase from the previous year, but still a drop in the ocean: UNEP estimates that between $215 billion and $387 billion are needed each year for adaptation in developing countries.

Rich countries have pledged to double that amount by 2025 to around $40 billion a year, but even that would leave an “extremely large” financing gap for adaptation, UNEP said.

Climate disasters hit poorer communities hardest, but the cost of inaction is no longer borne by them alone, said Patrick Verkooijen, CEO of the Global Center for Adaptation.

“From rising seas and extreme heatwaves to relentless droughts and floods, the impacts of climate change now touch every corner of the globe. No nation, no community is immune,” he said. he declared in a press release.

Spanish authorities were accused of being insufficiently prepared when a major storm caused flooding that killed more than 200 people last month.

Climatologists say global warming is fueling more frequent and severe extreme weather events.

“We cannot postpone protection. We must adapt – now,” said Guterres.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)