NAIROBI, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- Governments, lenders and investors need to increase financing towards climate change adaptation in order to strengthen the resilience of communities, ecosystems and economies, says a report launched by UN Environment Program (UNEP) on Thursday.
According to UNEP Adaptation Gap Report 2020, countries should prioritize financing projects that boost the capacity of local communities to cope with negative impacts of climate change like droughts and floods.
"As the UN Secretary-General has said, we need a global commitment to put half of all global climate finance towards adaptation in the next year," said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director.
This will allow a huge step up in adaptation-in everything from early warning systems to resilient water resources to nature-based solutions," she added.
The UNEP report says that as temperatures rise and climate change impacts intensify, nations must urgently step up action to adapt to the new climate reality or face serious costs, damages and losses.
It says that while nations have advanced in planning, huge gaps remain in finance for developing countries and in implementing adaptation projects to bring real protection against climate impacts such as droughts, floods and sea-level rises.
The report calls on developed countries to allocate finance and implement climate change adaptation as a moral responsibility towards their poorer counterparts least responsible for climate change but most at risk.
"Almost three-quarters of nations have some adaptation plans in place, but financing and implementation fall far short of what is needed," says the report.
It urges nations to prioritize and provide human well-being and biodiversity benefits by protecting, sustainably managing and restoring natural or modified ecosystems.
The report finds that 72 percent of countries have adopted at least one national-level adaptation planning instrument.
"However, most developing countries are preparing National Adaptation Plans, yet they lack funding to implement the plans," says the report.
It calls for increased public and private adaptation finance, new tools such as sustainability investment criteria, climate-related disclosure principles and mainstreaming of climate risks into investment decisions to stimulate investments in climate resilience.
The report says there is an increasing momentum to ensure a sustainable financial system implementation of adaptation actions is also growing.
"Since 2006, close to 400 adaptation projects financed by multilateral funds serving the Paris Agreement have taken place in developing countries," says the report.
It calls for adoption of nature-based solutions as low-cost options that can help reduce climate risks, restore and protect biodiversity and bring benefits for communities and economies.
According to the report, cutting greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the impacts and costs associated with climate change.
"All nations must pursue the efforts outlined in UNEP's Emissions Gap Report 2020, which called for a green pandemic recovery and updated Nationally Determined Contributions that include new net-zero commitments," says the report. Enditem
