The devastation unleashed by Hurricane Melissa on Jamaica vividly illustrates the threats faced by small and vulnerable nations as the world warms, whether from storms, floods, wildfires or drought. Money to fund adaptations to blunt those impacts is not just failing to keep up with needs — it is actually slowing down, according to a report by the UN Environmental Programme released on Wednesday.
UNEP estimates that developing countries will need from $310 billion to $365 billion in adaptation finance per year by 2035. The Glasgow Climate Pact, agreed at the COP26 summit in 2021, called for developed countries to provide about $40 billion per year by 2025, well short of what is needed. But even that “is not coming,” Inger Andersen, UNEP’s executive director, writes in the foreword to Adaptation Gap Report 2025: Running on Empty.