If political headwinds buffeted the negotiation and adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015, they have since swelled into a tempest as the treaty turns 10. It is hard to keep faith in the power of multilateral conventions to advance the common cause. Even harder when geopolitics is ravaging cooperation and consensus-building to a degree not seen since the cold war.

The Paris Agreement still has clout. In signalling long-term policy continuity, it allowed the forces of capitalism to do their work in turning the transition to net zero into a profitable marketplace. While the climate community wrestles with the now inevitable slide to 1.5° overshoot, there remains hope (at least hope that I cling to) that the overshoot may be short-lived. Advances in technology with new thresholds of commercial viability are accelerating the transition, even as climate action becomes increasingly disassociated from political capital and election agendas.

Yet, with seven of nine planetary boundaries in breach, there is no doubt current and future generations face a future with more risk – more known unknowns, more unknown unknowns, more “black swans” – than previous generations ever had to contemplate. By placing humanity’s ability to adapt to the impacts of climate change on a par with its efforts to reduce it, the Paris Agreement was seminal in recognizing the importance of resilience building.

A catalyst for a new agenda

The Paris Agreement catalysed adaptation planning at the national scale. Since then, 144 countries have begun to develop “roadmaps for resilience” (otherwise known as national adaptation plans). Over the last 10 years, a drive for locally led adaptation rose to such prominence that its principles – empowering communities to lead adaptation plans and actions – have been endorsed by more than 130 adaptation actors and advocated by thousands more.

Yet too little is being done to bridge the gap between planning and implementation. International public finance to developing countries for adaptation totalled USD 26 billion in 2023. Contrast that with the expected USD 365 billion per year cost of adaptation in developing countries by 2035. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that “climate change impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage”. More effort is needed to translate the Paris Agreement from paper to practice.

Hopes and doubts

André Aranha Correa do Lago, President of this year’s UN Climate Conference in Belém, hoped it would be remembered as “the COP of adaptation implementation”. In the wake of the conference, I stand perfectly poised between optimism and pessimism on whether the next 10 years of the Paris Agreement really will build resilience to climate change risks, particularly in ways that are just and equitable.

Reasons for hope? The Paris Agreement persists. It would not be possible to reach an agreement of this kind today, but it was possible a decade ago, and we continue – gratefully – to reap its rewards. At the local scale, communities around the world are taking adaptation into their hands. At the global scale, the global goal on adaptation is finally receiving the attention it has deserved for a decade. Although outcomes from Belém fell short – failing to deliver a robust set of indicators to track progress – beneath the technical debates lies a powerful prospect of stronger global cooperation on adaptation. If countries agree to strengthen the indicators over the coming two years – as they must, for any credible assessment of progress – they could bring sharper definition to adaptation, pushing it up the political agenda and driving ambition and action accordingly.

Reasons for doubt? We human beings are still terrible at planning for, and proactively acting in the face of, risk. A global pandemic hasn’t changed that. Escalating war around the world hasn’t either. We continue to demand increasing evidence about what risks we face, and what works to effectively adapt to them, without being willing to change our approach to how we manage them. This inability to understand systemic risk was evident in Belém, where objections were raised to indicators that would have assessed progress in building resilience to more complex, cross-border and cascading climate risks. Such objections fly in the face of the Paris Agreement, previous decisions taken at UN Climate Conferences, and IPCC assessments. They reflect an outdated and narrow reading of transboundary climate risks and a failure to recognize that risks spread swiftly and at scale in our interconnected world. Research shows that these risks affect all countries, with the potential to disrupt trade, food systems, financial investments, energy networks, transportation and health worldwide. 

A drive for strategic resilience

The adaptation community’s battle over the past decade was to place adaptation on par with mitigation – as the Paris Agreement really should have settled once and for all. The next mission must be to embed adaptation within a broader drive for strategic resilience, and to elevate its political salience accordingly. We must do so while resisting territorial and securitized responses to climate risks that give rise to a false sense of security. 

The past decade has taught us about the cross-border and complex nature of risk, including climate risk. As those risks accelerate and intensify over the next decade, we need to invest in strategic risk management. We must put the global goal on adaptation into practice. And we have to recognize that adaptation without cooperation is an illusion: we cannot secure ourselves by standing apart.