From targets to implementation: shaping the Global Goal on Adaptation at SB62

This piece was originally published on the United Nations Foundation website.

The climate crisis doesn’t wait for perfect plans or complete data sets. While the world continues to heat up, communities from the Pacific Islands to the African Sahel are already adapting — or struggling to adapt — to rising seas, shifting rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events that are becoming the new normal.

Ten years ago, countries agreed on the historic Paris Agreement, which articulated the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) as enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience, and reducing vulnerability to climate change. That goal was further elaborated with a set of 11 targets under the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience in 2023. At that point, parties also launched the UAE-Belém Work Programme on indicator development, a two-year process aimed at developing indicators to track progress on the targets and overall GGA. This indicator set has been the focus of intense technical work since 2024 and is intended to be agreed upon at COP30 in November in Belém, Brazil. As countries gather at the upcoming the mid-year climate negotiations in Bonn (SB 62) they face a pivotal question: Can the international community translate years of technical work into meaningful action that reaches the frontlines of climate impact?

The challenge of measuring the unmeasurable

Adaptation is inherently local and context-specific. How do you create global indicators that capture whether a farmer in Bangladesh has successfully shifted to drought-resistant crops, or whether a coastal city in West Africa has built effective protection against sea-level rise? This challenge has been at the heart of the UAE–Belém Work Programme’s most ambitious undertaking.

The numbers tell the story of both progress and complexity. What began as an overwhelming list of over 10,000 adaptation-related indicators has been refined through the expertise of 78 specialists across eight working groups. Through multiple rounds of collaboration, this massive catalogue was first narrowed to 7,000 indicators, then consolidated into a more manageable set of 490. Released by the UNFCCC Secretariat in May, these indicators span several thematic domains and draw strategically from established frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals and the Sendai Framework.

Yet the hardest work lies ahead. In November 2024, parties suggested the final framework should be a manageable set of no more than 100 indicators—a reduction that must maintain scientific rigor while ensuring practical usability, especially for countries with limited institutional capacity. The risk of “indicator overload” looms large. A system designed to clarify adaptation progress could easily overwhelm stakeholders and worsen the reporting fatigue that already plagues many developing nations.

Beyond numbers: the human dimension

The real test of any indicator framework isn’t its technical sophistication — it’s whether it captures what matters most for the people living with climate impacts. This means embedding cross-cutting dimensions that define meaningful adaptation: gender responsiveness, equity, Indigenous and local knowledge, risk-informed planning, and genuine inclusion.

These aren’t optional add-ons to be considered later. They fundamentally shape how adaptation is experienced, particularly by the most climate-vulnerable communities. While expert groups have made significant efforts to reflect these considerations across targets, ensuring consistent application remains a challenge. Fragmented data systems, sectoral silos, and uneven national capacities threaten to dilute these equity considerations in the final framework.

Without these elements, the GGA risks becoming a narrow technical exercise rather than the transformative tool the world urgently needs.

Emerging frontiers and systemic thinking

The climate crisis is pushing adaptation beyond traditional boundaries. Transformational adaptation — the kind that requires fundamental changes to systems and structures—and transboundary adaptation that crosses national borders are challenging existing frameworks and demanding more systemic, forward-looking approaches.

SB62 represents a critical moment to define these priorities and ensure the indicator architecture captures what truly matters for long-term resilience, rather than simply what is easily quantifiable. The upcoming SB62 meeting agenda includes a mandated workshop on indicators under the UAE–Belém Work Programme, offering a key opportunity to advance consensus on the final set. Complementary events, including an IPCC special session on Working Group II and progress updates on Enhanced Transparency Framework reporting tools, as well as the Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR) preparation workshop, will help align science, monitoring, and implementation.

From spreadsheets to real-world impact

As the indicator work nears completion and COP30 in Belém comes into focus, attention is shifting toward the ultimate test: implementation. The challenge is transitioning from lists and spreadsheets to tangible, on-the-ground results that improve lives and build resilience.

Translating global ambition into national action won’t depend solely on the indicators themselves. Success will hinge on whether countries have the systems, support, and resources to embed these metrics into their planning and reporting frameworks. This means aligning GGA indicators with existing tools, such as National Adaptation Plans and Adaptation Communications, while avoiding additional reporting burdens that could overwhelm already overstretched institutions.

The BTRs under the Enhanced Transparency Framework offer a pathway to streamline adaptation reporting — but only if designed with enough flexibility to support diverse national contexts and capacities.

The Baku roadmap: connecting global frameworks to local action

Enter the Baku Adaptation Roadmap (BAR), which is still under negotiation, but could be a mechanism to guide national use of GGA indicators. Party submissions envision the BAR as the bridge between global frameworks and local action — sequencing interventions, aligning instruments, identifying capacity needs, and facilitating shared learning across countries and regions.

This is where the political dimension becomes crucial. How will the UNFCCC ensure accountability for GGA progress? The BAR and the broader Baku-to-Belém Roadmap are emerging as anchors for both national alignment and multilateral accountability, linking domestic adaptation cycles to global assessments through the Global Stocktake process.

As the first Global Stocktake cycle feeds into the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions due at COP30, countries face pressure to demonstrate how adaptation gaps identified through the stocktaking process are being addressed through frameworks like the GGA.

Following the money: finance and accountability

Indicators are one thing, but resources are another.  At the June meeting, negotiators have the opportunity to connect progress tracking with finance flows and global stocktaking in meaningful ways. Means of implementation indicators have been proposed to assess whether funding, capacity-building, and technology support are actually meeting countries’ adaptation needs.

Several stakeholders are urging SB 62 to begin aligning the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance more strongly with the GGA, defining not just how much finance is needed to meet agreed-upon targets but also where it should be directed and how it can be most effectively channelled. Many parties are calling for the finance goal to move beyond tracking inputs to incorporating measurable adaptation outcomes.

Without this alignment, there is a real risk of creating a fragmented landscape where adaptation is meticulously tracked but not meaningfully resourced — a bureaucratic exercise that fails to support the communities most in need.

Beyond silos: adaptation goes mainstream

Adaptation is no longer confined to its own corner of climate negotiations. During Climate Week in Panama, held from May 19 to 24, 2025, adaptation emerged prominently in cross-cutting dialogues, from the Just Transition Work Programme to the Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on Implementation. This signals a fundamental shift: adaptation is becoming a guiding principle across sectors — from finance and food systems to labour and social protection.

At the upcoming June meeting, this momentum is expected to accelerate. The challenge now is translating this integrated vision into operational clarity, ensuring that as adaptation becomes embedded across the climate regime, it’s done with coherence, intention, and adequate support.

The Belém test: from measuring to building resilience

The decisions taken in Bonn will fundamentally shape how effectively the UAE–Belém Work Programme lands at COP30 under Brazil’s presidency. Brazil has positioned resilience and implementation at the heart of its agenda, seeking not only political visibility for adaptation but tangible outcomes that address the lived realities of vulnerable communities.

Whether by finalizing a credible indicator set, clarifying national integration pathways, or aligning finance with measurable outcomes, SB62 must lay the foundation for a coherent and actionable GGA. But the stakes extend far beyond technical architecture.

The structures being built now — from BAR and Enhanced Transparency Framework linkages to embedding adaptation in just transition, food systems, and finance — will define the long-term credibility of adaptation under the Paris Agreement. In this sense, the GGA represents more than a global goal. It’s a political project to re-center equity, accountability, and climate justice at the core of climate governance.

SB62 will signal whether the world is ready to move from measuring resilience to meaningfully building it. COP 30 will respond to that signal. For the billions of people already living with climate impacts, the answer can’t come soon enough.