To the COP28 President-Designate, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber,

No matter the definition or measurement used, financing for climate adaptation has been far below what is needed. We have been falling short so often in our fight against climate change that we may have become numbed to what these failures really mean; underfunding adaptation means condemning families, communities, and countries to largely avoidable suffering and poverty.

We are warned of the 'rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all' in our first Global Stocktake. Every single human being on the planet will need to adjust to actual or expected climate and its effects. This could be as critical as rapidly expediting life-saving vaccines to millions as disease-vectors change their ranges, or as relatively benign as installing more water fountains in schools. Yet what is unequivocal is that developing countries are going to bear the worst impacts of climate change and as such, have the most acute need to adapt.

As you highlight in your recent letter, there is no path to Paris that doesn’t put people front and centre. It is clearer than ever that we need to fund adaptation today, not tomorrow. In 2023, we’ve seen devastating floods across Libya, Southern China, and Brazil; one of the strongest cyclones to ever make landfall in Myanmar and Bangladesh; and the ever-expanding wildfire season displace and devastate countless communities across the globe. It would be remiss to forget those creeping impacts of climate change, less likely to make the headlines, such as sea level rise making farmland unproductive, longer periods of unbearable heat, and conflict escalation, to name but a few. Those young enough to see the next century may remember when climate-related disasters were infrequent, they will also inherit a high mental health burden of a world on fire under a changing climate.

Upholding your letter’s promise to ‘put those most impacted at the heart of climate action’ will mean addressing head on that finance for adaptation is far behind the pace needed. To accelerate it, in the short term you must keep adaptation high on the COP28 agenda and use this platform to deliver a greater, more predictable flow of concessional finance from developed to developing countries. Simplifying and expediting access to finance will also mean breaking down the adaptation-development barrier through a strong framework for the Global Goal on Adaptation in pursuit of nationally appropriate climate-resilient development pathways to sustainable development and poverty alleviation. No more competing agendas: these are two sides of the same coin protecting human rights, as is clear from your efforts towards sustainable food systems.

In the medium to longer term, you must send a strong signal to embed the pursuit of adaptation and resilience in the actions of the breadth of actors and institutions involved in how finance is governed, directed, and allocated. You must create the conditions where climate vulnerable countries gain the international support they need to raise and administer sustainable revenues they can use to spur adaptation. This includes restructuring or relieving debt burdens that are forcing countries into making impossible trade-offs. You must ensure that international financial, trade and tax regulation is channelling private finance into adaptation and resilience building, particularly in the most climate vulnerable countries, working for rather than against their climate resilient development.

We creep closer to a resolute failure of humanity each time COP sweeps by without the action that is needed. President-delegate, we see your commitment and dedication to making these multilateral negotiations a success. We implore you to ensure that political declarations do not crowd out critical space for negotiated outcomes delivering concrete action. The money is there. We have the means to allow everyone to thrive today and tomorrow; all we need is the will.

Signed, in our individual capacities as people deeply committed to climate action