Despite an opening statement by Turkiye’s presidency – of making the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP31) in Antalya an ‘implementation COP’ – the negotiators from rich countries have seemed reluctant to include a delivery plan for adaptation finance in line with COP30’s call for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance, marking $1.3 trillion a year by 2035, as an agenda item.
The documents placed at COP31 also ignore debt-sensitive climate finance in line with the Baku-to-Belem Roadmap on debt constraints – grants, not loans, a financed water and cryosphere package covering inland water and mountain ecosystems, a negotiated timeframe for fossil-fuel transition and predictable funding for loss and damage.
Speaking at COP31, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned against a super-sized El Nino that has already caused heatwaves even in Europe and a glacier collapse in Nepal and called for serious climate action, faster emission cuts, a just transition from fossil fuels, and finance and protection for vulnerable countries. An EU official had already warned that there would be ‘no political will’ for extra funding pledges. Developing countries were pledged approximately $305 billion annually by 2035 to address escalating climate vulnerabilities and build resilience.
According to the UN Environment Programme Adaptation Gap Report 2026, global public adaptation finance reaches only about $28.2 billion to $31.7 billion per year, leaving a massive shortfall where developing nations receive roughly 10 cents for every dollar they need. Even if global goals to triple public adaptation finance by 2035 are met, this would only cover 20-29 per cent of the total estimated requirement. Failing on these important counts calls for reforming the COP negotiation and implementation processes.
An estimated 3.3-3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change. Developing nations submitted applications totalling $2.8 billion during the first round of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, which had an initial funding envelope of just $342 million.
The WHO notes that simple, scalable health and safety measures, such as heatwave early warning systems and climate-resilient water services, could save 1.6 million lives a year and yield high economic returns (early warning systems return about $9 in benefits for every $1 invested).
This shows a huge cleavage between the supply side (resource-backed implementation) and the demand side (rising temperatures with global apathy and inaction) of climate resilience and vulnerability. When one analyses the last five COPs (Glasgow, Sharm el-Shaikh, Dubai, Baku and Belem-2021-2025), one finds how the COPs have moved faster on making paper commitments than they have ensured adequate emissions cuts and finances disbursed for climate change and loss and damage to vulnerable countries. No deadlines seem to have been set for future targets. And COP31 has inherited this implementation backlog.
The UNEP Emission Gap Report (EGR 2026): ‘The point of return’ calls for emissions cuts needed to come back from crossing 1.5C. The WMO’s 22nd annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, which came ahead of COP31, warns that three main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, rose to unprecedented levels in 2025 after the strong 2023/2024 El Nino.
WMO deputy secretary general Ko Barrett says, “Another year, another new record. Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies.”
The reality is that the major GHG emitters have not delivered adequately. National pledges on emissions cuts under nationally determined contributions (NDCs) are off track. EGR 2026 estimates 2.8C of warming if the current state of climate finance delivery and emissions cuts remains the same, reflecting implementation and ambition gaps.
The Production Gap Report 2025 finds planned global fossil fuel production in 2030 is more than 120 per cent above a 1.5C-consistent level. This situation clearly distinguishes leading emitters’ mitigation responsibilities, including financing obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which explicitly requires developed countries to provide mitigation and adaptation resources.
The situation is alarming, as COP31 inherits all missed obligations in violation of Article 9. Amid these missed opportunities, climate justice voices from across Asia and the rest of the world demand clean climate finance, more in terms of grants and not loans that add to their debt.
As co-chair of Climate Network South Asia (CANSA), a network of civil society, think tanks and academia from the region, I would like to present some priority actions for COP31 and beyond (endorsed by members of CANSA and partners), calling for wider reforms for COP processes and to turn decisions from papers into actions.
National governments, parties to the UNFCCC, climate funds, multilateral development banks, bilateral donors and other climate-finance institutions should realise that communities are confronting intensifying heat, floods, drought, sea-level rise, cryosphere degradation, water insecurity and ecosystem loss. These impacts are damaging food systems, health, housing, livelihoods, cultural heritage and essential services.
They are also driving displacement and causing economic and non-economic loss and damage. Yet the people and institutions closest to these realities have the least influence over how climate finance is designed, allocated and governed.
Despite yearly COPs, finance remains inaccessible to the people or institutions that need it most. Complex accreditation, co-financing and limited grants exclude smaller actors, while priorities and budgets remain controlled elsewhere.
Climate finance is a question of justice and power: who controls resources, who benefits and who bears the cost of the climate crisis. Adaptation and loss and damage should be financed primarily through grants and other non-debt-creating public finance, grounded in the historical responsibility of those who have contributed most to climate change. Climate finance must move from local delivery to local financial agency: the ability to shape priorities, access and manage resources, and make consequential decisions about their use.
The leaders at COP31 should create direct and devolved financing windows with smaller grants and proportionate procedures for local governments and community institutions. Where direct transfers are not legally possible, accountable intermediaries should disclose their costs, mandate and decision rights. Communities should help select them and have a clear pathway towards greater local control. Grant-based support should fund risk assessments, community consultation, feasibility work, safeguards, proposal development and institutional readiness before a complete application is required.
Support must also build local capacity to access and manage finance. Grants should cover fair staffing, management, administration, safeguarding and monitoring costs so that local organisations are not required to subsidise climate action.
Governments should connect local climate plans to predictable finance through fiscal transfers, local-government grants, sector programmes and national climate funds, with meaningful local discretion. Climate-budget tagging should inform allocation rather than remain only a reporting exercise. National Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions should show how local priorities shape budgets and investments, without relabelling all development spending as climate finance.
Reporting should disclose approved and disbursed amounts, delays, intermediary and management costs, final recipients and who controls spending decisions. It should distinguish consultation, implementation responsibility and financial authority, and show who benefits and who remains excluded. Participatory reviews, social audits and accessible grievance mechanisms should assess both financial compliance and community influence over priorities and results.
Accreditation, registration, banking, co-financing, procurement and reporting requirements should be proportionate to scale and risk. Public-good adaptation should not be rejected because it lacks commercial revenue. Informal settlements should not be excluded because residents lack secure tenure. Consortia and intermediaries should enable participation while preserving local identity and decision-making authority.
Local governments, community institutions, women’s organisations, Indigenous Peoples, youth, organisations of persons with disabilities, and locally rooted civil society should have formal, appropriately balanced, and resourced roles before priorities, eligibility rules and budgets are fixed. Accessible information, time to deliberate and clear rights to influence decisions are essential. Representation must enable decisions, with transparency, inclusion and conflict-of-interest safeguards for all participating institutions.
The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, governments and other providers should offer rapid, community-accessible support beyond conventional project cycles. Finance should be additional to adaptation and development budgets, predominantly grant-based and non-debt-creating. Affected people must help define recovery priorities. Support should address extreme events, slow-onset impacts, displacement and livelihood loss, and non-economic losses affecting ecosystems, cultural heritage, identity and community cohesion.
The writer is an Islamabad-based policy analyst. He is currently the deputy executive director (policy) at SDPI, Islamabad and can be reached at: [email protected]
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.
