World must better adapt to ‘climate calamity’: Guterres

PARIS: The world is nowhere near ready for the “calamity” being caused by climate change and must urgently prepare for even worse in the future, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

Global efforts to adapt to climate change -- from building defensive sea walls to planting drought-resistant crops -- have not kept pace as global warming accelerates the frequency and intensity of disasters. Floods, fires and other climate shocks have affected nearly every continent in a year the EU climate monitor says is almost certain to be the hottest ever recorded.

The amount of money going to poorer countries for adaptation measures was barely one-tenth of what they needed to disaster-proof their vulnerable economies, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a new assessment looking at 2022, the latest year for which data is available. “Climate calamity is the new reality. And we´re not keeping up,” said Guterres at the launch of UNEP´s annual Adaptation Gap Report.

Rich nations are under pressure at this month´s UN COP29 summit to substantially increase the $100 billion they pledged for climate action in developing countries, including for adaptation.