The U.S. Agency for International Development has requested $1.35 billion in annual climate adaptation funding with one goal: to strengthen the climate resilience of half a million people. This comes as the world grapples with the relatively meager amounts of adaptation finance mobilized to date — in part because we haven’t truly defined what climate adaptation success looks like.
Although the final workshop under the Glasgow–Sharm el-Sheikh work program on the global goal of adaptation took place in September ahead of the 28th U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP28, contributors did not reach an agreement on any one set of metrics. The difficulty of finding consensus was reiterated by some at the recent Adaptation Futures conference in Montreal, who suggested agreement on a measure or set of measures is a unicorn.
Climate adaptation measures are critical to holding donors and governments accountable for progress and incentivizing private and blended finance. Here are four considerations for measuring the success of these investments.