Abstract

With each passing year, adaptation action is more urgent than ever. Climate change induced impacts and catastrophes are sweeping across the globe, often affecting the most vulnerable communities and ecosystems. Along with rapid and extensive emissions reductions in all sectors and countries, ambitious and effective adaptation action holds the potential to open a path towards resilience and prosperity.

Since its entry into force in 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has shone a light on the challenge of climate change and invited Parties and other stakeholders to the table to identify options for and make commitments to mitigating and adapting to its impacts. In addition to opening a political space for countries to engage and raise their ambition on adaptation, the UNFCCC has also raised awareness of adaptation and increasingly put in place institutions to provide guidance and support to countries undertaking adaptation action. Notable among these is the Adaptation Committee, which, since beginning its work in 2012, has served as the Convention’s leading source of overarching technical support and guidance on adaptation action, finance, technology, and capacity-building.

This report is published by the Adaptation Committee, and updates and builds on a previous report published by the Adaptation Committee in 2013, titled The State of Adaptation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 1 As was the case with the 2013 edition, this report illustrates the landscape and history of how adaptation has been approached throughout the lifetime of the international climate change regime under the UNFCCC. It traces the path of adaptation, beginning with the birth of the Convention itself, through important milestones like the Cancun Adaptation Framework and the Paris Agreement, and offers a glimpse into the future as envisioned by the agreements governments have put in place to help safeguard the wellbeing of people and the planet.

Affiliated Organizations

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

UNFCCC stands for United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Convention has near universal membership (198 Parties) and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

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