As Climate Crisis Intensifies, World Must Move Faster to Match Rising Needs, Says Secretary-General in Message on Release of Adaptation Gap Report

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres' message on the release of the Adaptation Gap Report, today:

Today's Adaptation Gap Report is a red alert.

Climate impacts are accelerating. Yet adaptation finance is not keeping pace, leaving the world's most vulnerable exposed to rising seas, deadly storms and searing heat.

The report finds that developing countries' adaptation needs are already more than 12 times greater than the finance they receive today. This is not just a funding gap, it is a failure of global solidarity. It is measured in flooded homes, failed harvests, derailed development - and lost lives.

As the climate crisis deepens and costs climb, the world must move much faster to match rising needs.

The thirtieth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 30) in Brazil must deliver a global action plan to ensure developing countries have the resources and capacity to protect their people, strengthen food and water security, and build resilience across every sector of development.

That includes developed countries honouring their overdue pledge to double adaptation finance, and all financial actors moving forward on the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap - mobilizing $1.3 trillion a year by 2035, with a fair, predictable share for adaptation, and ensuring that new finance does not increase debt burdens.

The private sector must step up - investing far more in resilience and adaptation. Fossil-fuel profits must help fund the recovery from the damage they have caused. Multilateral development banks must mobilize far more private affordable finance and devote half of their climate funding to adaptation. Public finance must also become faster and simpler to access, reaching the communities on the front lines when and where it is needed most.

And we must deliver Early Warnings for All by 2027, protecting every person on Earth from climate hazards before they strike.

Adaptation is not a cost - it is a lifeline. Closing the adaptation gap is how we protect lives, deliver climate justice and build a safer, more sustainable world. Let us not waste another moment.