Press Release: Adaptation Fund High Level Contributor Dialogue Outcomes

17 November 2025 — Today was the Adaptation Fund’s High Level Contributor Dialogue, bringing together contributors to publicly announce their commitments to the Adaptation Fund for 2026. The Adaptation Fund is a UNFCCC-linked fund exclusively dedicated to providing adaptation finance, which it provides in the form of full-cost grants to developing countries. Adaptation remains a key priority for developing countries and is also central to the COP30 Presidency’s agenda. As Parties work to finalise the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), strong finance commitments from developed countries will be crucial to enable effective implementation. Adaptation is also a fundamental social and economic imperative: it directly shapes the future of workers, livelihoods and communities who are already facing heat stress, job disruptions, unsafe working conditions and other climate-driven impacts. Adequate adaptation finance is essential to protect people as well as economies.

The Board of the Adaptation Fund had decided on a resource mobilisation floor of US$300 million for 2025 to secure funding operations in 2026, a number that is already far below the needs of developing countries, and does not cover the estimated $1 billion USD value of the pipeline of projects currently under review by the Fund. Four new pledges were announced by — Spain, Ireland, Belgium (Walloon region) and Luxembourg — amounting to a total of €38 million (approximately US$44 million), far below the resource mobilisation floor. Sweden confirmed its contribution announced earlier this year, while several multi-year contributions continue to support the Fund’s operations. Other additional pledges, such as from long-standing contributor Germany, are anticipated. However, all current signals suggest that total pledges will fall well short of the US$300 million minimum, likely amounting to less than half. It is the third year in a row that contributors have failed to meet the target set for the Adaptation Fund.

“As co-coordinators of the Adaptation Working Group of the Women and Gender Constituency, we recognize that the Adaptation Fund plays a critical role in enabling the implementation of the Global Goal on Adaptation and meeting the increasing needs of communities that are leading transformative, gender-just climate solutions around the world,”Alex Gordon, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). “A well-funded Adaptation Fund is essential for the effective implementation of its Intersectional Gender Policy, which ensures that women, girls, and gender-diverse people can equitably access public, grant-based support for the adaptation activities they lead on the frontlines. The current lack of meaningful pledges is not just disappointing; it will have real and immediate consequences for the lives of women, girls, and gender-diverse people, hindering the resilience-building efforts of their communities at a time when adaptation support is urgently needed.”

This year’s pledges are particularly consequential, given the new climate finance goal of US$300 billion per year by 2035 established at COP29, where Parties decided to significantly increase the public resources provided through UNFCCC-linked funds like the Adaptation Fund. This year’s pledges — or the lack thereof — are the first litmus test of developed countries’ commitment to fulfilling this new climate finance goal. An additional pledging event at COP30, for the two specialized funds under the Global Environment Facility (GEF) serving the most vulnerable, the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) and the Special Climate Change Fund (SCCF), has already been cancelled, presumably due to lack of interest by contributors.

“Adaptation finance is the clearest test of global solidarity,” said Pooja Dave, Policy Coordinator, Climate Action Network International. “The UNEP Adaptation Gap Report tells us that needs now exceed current finance by a factor of 12–14. This shortfall is not just a number — it’s a warning. Warm words won’t protect communities. Only concrete, scaled-up pledges to the Adaptation Fund will turn commitments into real action to protect and build resilience.”

This latest failure to provide sufficient finance for the Adaptation Fund highlights the lack of commitment of developed countries to fulfil their obligations under the Paris Agreement, as recently reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion. This reality was also reflected in the negotiations this past week, where developing countries made a strong push for a dedicated agenda space to discuss these obligations by developed countries, in particular under Article 9.1 under the Paris Agreement, to provide public, predictable, timely and adequate climate finance to support climate action in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The failure to support the UNFCCC-linked multilateral climate funds is particularly significant, given their unique governance and accountability arrangements, the eligibility of all developing countries to access them, and their unique role in setting the standards for best practices in the provision of effective, rights-based climate action. Together, these funds offer specific mechanisms for access to climate finance, including through direct access provisions, that follow strong mandates for gender responsiveness and by upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Additional Quotes

“At a moment when adaptation needs are exploding and workers are already bearing the brunt of climate impacts, developed countries’ failure to meet even the minimum funding floor for the Adaptation Fund is deeply concerning,” said Eric Mansi, Deputy-General of ITUC (TUNGO). “Without predictable, grant-based adaptation finance, countries cannot protect jobs, safeguard communities, or advance a just transition. Every missing dollar widens inequalities and undermines the resilience that workers everywhere urgently need.”

“Today’s lack of action in filling the empty coffers of the Adaptation Fund confirms what we have been suspecting this past week: the words of developed country Parties when it comes to finance are not only disingenuous, distracting, and dangerous, but also cover for the continued lie that they would act with accountability, responsibility, and legality in fulfilling their obligations and working toward the achievement of the Paris Agreement,” said Tara Daniel, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO). “To not rally to provide $300 million while promising that $300 billion will be delivered makes a joke of last year’s new finance goal. Waiting for money to magically manifest in response to the needs, science, and the law calling for a massive scale-up in adaptation finance is waiting for promises to be broken, and today was the first undeniable crack in this new collective quantified goal.”

“Communities on the frontlines are living the consequences of a crisis they did not create; governments must step up with real, long-term commitments to adaptation finance — finance that is non-binding, grant-based, and never delivered as loans that deepen debt,” said Tyrone Scott, War on Want, a member of Demand Climate Justice (DCJ). “But adaptation alone will never be enough. Justice demands that we pair funding with genuine commitments to end the destructive practices driving this crisis in the first place.”

“With increasing intensity of extreme weather events affecting millions around the world, developed countries need to urgently meet their commitments to substantially increase finance for adaptation action in the developing world,” said Faizal Parish, Chair of the GEF CSO Network. “The limited current contributors to the LDCF and SCCF as well as the cancellation of the planned pledging session at COP30, as well as poor contributions to the Adaptation Fund — indicates that adaptation finance is not being taken seriously. Inaction will jeopardise the lives of billions.”

“These paltry contributions are a conscious betrayal of duty and justice. Reparations are owed, and the fact that COP30 has become yet another arena for the Global North to hide behind empty pledges is a disgrace,” said Claire Miranda, Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development, a member of the Demand Climate Justice (DCJ). “While they evade responsibility, our people drown, starve, and claw their way out of the wreckage of a crisis they engineered. COP30 exposes a truth we have long known: the Global North has chosen negligence over responsibility. Year after year, their refusal to deliver adaptation finance forces the Global South to shoulder the consequences. Coming from the Philippines, this is an insult. We are suffering catastrophic loss and damage from supercharged typhoons, destruction that could have been prevented had adaptation been funded at the scale required. And another excuse about ‘not having enough resources’ is unacceptable, especially when these same countries pour billions into war, extraction, and the very industries that are torching our planet and devastating our communities.”

“The Adaptation Fund plays a unique and vital role in supporting the world’s most vulnerable communities to adapt to the worsening impacts of climate change,” said Julia Grimm, Senior Advisor Climate Finance at Germanwatch, facilitator of the Adaptation Fund CSO Group. “Grant-based, predictable and accessible finance through the Fund is essential to protect lives and livelihoods. Yet, as climate impacts intensify, adaptation finance continues to fall far short of what is needed. Too many developed countries are shifting their public resources toward mobilising finance from the private sector — mainly credits — which cannot fill the adaptation gap for those most in need. But the Adaptation Fund, with its grant-based support, can. Developed countries must urgently step up with stronger, multi-year commitments to ensure the Adaptation Fund can deliver on its crucial mandate.”

“The new climate finance goal in Baku last year promised US$ 300 billion to be mobilized for developing countries by 2035, but today’s galling and disastrous commitment shortfall by developed countries shows that they are not even willing to provide public finance for the US$ 300 million the Adaptation Fund asked to secure its barebone funding operations for 2026,” said Liane Schalatek, Associate Director, Heinrich Böll Foundation Washington, DC. “If this is indeed an indication of things to come — or rather not to come — then the NCQG is already not worth the paper the decision was printed on. The people and communities in developing countries already facing severe climate impact and needing no frills full cost grant support for their survival deserve better as a matter of justice, as a matter of decency, and as a matter of international law.”’

“What is happening to the Adaptation Fund is unfortunate,” said Kairos dela Cruz, Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities, GCF CSO Active Observer for developing countries. “However, what is worse is the scenario wherein developed countries are failing to provide resources and live up to their commitments and obligations across all our multilateral climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund. Such shortfalls in MCF funding are counterintuitive, especially now that we have moved past the debate of whether or not climate change impacts should be taken seriously. We know what we have to do but somehow don’t get to the ‘doing’ part. Science clearly said that the window to turning back from the point of no return is small and closing, but it is still there. Refusing to support finance mechanisms that would allow vulnerable countries to keep to that window is a travesty of conscience, morality, and accountability.”

“Today’s lack of sufficient pledges to the Adaptation Fund is not only a blatant disregard for the needs of communities to urgently adapt to climate disasters — it is also the first broken promise of the NCQG,” said Timon Steger & Nathan Shun Hei Lee, YOUNGO Finance and Adaptation Working Groups. “Need-based, grant-based and accessible finance from the Adaptation Fund is essential in ensuring fairness and intergenerational equity in climate finance. Without it, the costs of the climate crisis are shifted onto youth and future generations, deepening inequalities we had no role in creating. Minimising the growing burdens requires grant-based adaptation finance that allows communities to build resilience to escalating impacts and neither deepens the debt crisis nor forces communities into impossible trade-offs between development and resilience. Current pledges aren’t enough and fall far short—failing both the frontline communities today and the generations who will face the consequences tomorrow.”

“The impacts of the climate crisis are no longer undoubted,” said Juliet Nangamba, Economic Justice and Climate Action Acting Lead, Akina Mama wa Africa on behalf of AWGC. “Indigenous communities and rural communities are continuously confronting increasing vulnerabilities and exposures. There is an urgent need to invest in helping communities to build resilient ecosystems as this is a line of survival. FILL THE ADAPTATION FUND.”

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