The Urgent Need for Adaptation and Resilience Being Addressed at COP 16 and COP 29

From rising temperatures to droughts and flooding, the effects of accelerated global warming and extreme weather events are far reaching and often devastating, as seen recently in the Southeastern U.S., Spain, and Poland, with associated loss of life and possessions. There is unprecedented urgency to mitigate climate change below catastrophic levels and a very narrow gap to respond.

This week, world leaders, negotiators, scientists, and advocacy organizations from across the globe are gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan for COP 29, the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference focused on developing solutions for climate policy, financing, and limiting global temperature rise. COP 29 comes on the heels of another conference, COP 16 in Cali, Colombia, which takes a different angle to focus on preserving biodiversity and nature as a means to combat climate change. These conferences underscore the critical need for global cooperation as countries work together to address these challenges.

The agenda for COP 16 focused on implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Frameworks agreed upon at COP 15. Essentially, this conference aimed to address the biodiversity collapse we are experiencing worldwide and ensure urgent action on nature recovery, much of which is being driven through changes in financial reporting and investment into ‘nature-based solutions.’ Nature and interrelated ecosystems are a key part of how the planet can adapt to and recover from climate impact.

Conversely, COP 29 focuses on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are national climate targets that countries submit to the United Nations to support climate change commitments. NDCs are a key component of the global effort to combat climate change and are updated every five years. The deadline to update NDCs for the period up to 2035 is February 2025, and COP 29 is the last conference before this deadline. COP 29 will also focus on finance agreements.

These efforts are designed to build on the foundation laid by the Paris Agreement, reached at COP 21, where governments came together to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees. Arguably, that agreement has been breached, but there are still groups striving to keep 1.5 degree warming alive and encourage us to “follow the science.”

Currently, according to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “No more hot air,” the projected reduction in emissions from the NDCs is a 3% reduction on 2019 levels. To stay aligned to 1.5 degree warming scenarios and keep the Paris Agreement alive, a 47% reduction is the level needed by 2030 to avert the worst of the impacts of climate change. This 44% difference shows the scale of the ambition gap and lack of action on commitments.

COP 29 is critical.

The latest IPCC report, a peer reviewed report from the scientific community on the state of the planet and the actions needed, again highlights the urgency to respond to and mitigate climate-related threats. The warnings are rapidly becoming a lived reality as we are now seeing global warming’s effects on weather systems, and the Stockholm Institute of Climate Research has demonstrated that we have crossed six thresholds of interrelated systems that enable life to flourish within Earth’s system boundaries.

There are precedents in history where global accord on an issue led to measurable reduction — the best example of which was the commitment to reduce chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the 1980s to protect and restore the ozone layer, which has been demonstrably successful. Banning CFCs was easier than transitioning economies away from fossil fuels and into energy transition and decarbonisation, which explains why reaching global agreements has been historically challenging at COP meetings.

Why do COPs matter?

COPs have historically been criticised for failing to make sufficient progress, and IPCC reports have been largely unheeded. However, COPs provide a partisan platform for the world to cohere around matters and reach accord. They help create space for conversations around climate justice, just transition, sustainable development, and decarbonisation.

Emissions have continued to rise despite decades of these meetings. Nonetheless, they are a convening platform to enable parties to come together and try to obtain accord around critical issues. They are also a place where side deals are done and, importantly, to give a voice to the voiceless through the presence of indigenous people and youth pavilions.

Why in-between states?

Agreements made at COP are aimed at getting global agreement on key areas of mutual interest. There is clearly a demand for a just transition with the principle that polluters should pay or recompense areas that are impacted by climate change, which forms part of the strong negotiations at COP. There are examples of those payments not being made enough or on time, and decarbonisation plans not going deep enough or fast enough, which leads to some of the tension and dissatisfaction from COP negotiations.

But in-between states could also relate to how we collectively need to address the climate challenge. Historically, the collective focus has been on decarbonisation and disclosure to get to ‘net zero’ but there are increasing calls to strive for regenerative design and focus on adaptation and resilience. These latter calls will accelerate as we need to protect life and assets from climate related events. New defenses designed with nature are needed, and one of the major themes of COP 29 is adaptation .

Good examples of adaptation in action are sponge cities, which were initially conceived of in China, but the idea has been adopted around the world. This is a design intervention where land is able to absorb either sea level rise or flood events in order to protect other parts of the city. Larger interventions can be things like The BIG U — lower Manhattan’s flood defense, which incorporates park land and planting for habitat. At an even larger scale, there is the global call for offset payments to reach net zero where investments are made into protecting and restoring forests, mangroves, and oceans to perform or protect their role as carbon sinks.

Much has been written about the veracity of the unregulated carbon market and offsets, but greater regulation, transparency, and the role of technology will bring more trust to this sector. The more investment in nature-based solutions for carbon sequestration as part of the pursuit of net zero, the more just the transition will be into regions that are paid to protect habitat and give right livelihood, and the faster we will support the planet’s mechanism to restore balance. This is where some of the principles behind carbon pricing, nature-based solutions, and ecosystem services are found. This is also where civic society can make real the promises made by government negotiators at COP meetings.

Making peace with nature

In the 1970s, the Gaia hypothesis outlined that the biosphere (all living things) function as one interrelated super organism that changes its environment to create conditions that best meet its needs, with the ability to self-regulate critical systems to sustain life. Nature, particularly land, is under pressure to meet our needs for housing, cities, and food production, but also carbon sequestration, rewilding, and habitat. That interrelated system is being impacted by climate change and is now believed to be triggering feedback loops, including methane emissions rising from permafrost melt and wildfires releasing carbon. This is why there is a renewed focus on nature and carbon among the COP meetings. In fact, the theme of COP 16 was “making peace with nature.”

States will also be under pressure; with 1 in 10 people expected to be climate migrants in the next 100 years, we can expect humanity to be on the move and bring with it pressures on cities, finances, immigration, and infrastructure. Population growth is also driving demand for more buildings, which is a contributing factor to climate impacts, as we know cities and buildings account for 75% of emissions and 40% carbon emissions. Liveable places will change as weather systems shift and cities and countries will need to adapt to more extreme temperatures, fires, and flooding.

The built environment has strong representation at COP, both in the blue zone (governments negotiation spaces), and green zone (civic society and corporate space). A number of coalitions look to promote decarbonisation in materials and construction to contribute to the overall agenda, ranging from Green Building Councils and Materials Councils (e.g. Global Concrete Council) to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. These coalitions are able to represent the needs of the built environment sector and support the government’s decarbonisation commitments. COPs are generally well-managed by the UN to ensure no lobbying by interested parties into the government negotiations, to ensure commercial interests are kept outside. Structurally, this is dealt with through the separation of negotiations in the green and blue zones.

The outcome of COP 16 has been hopeful, although there are always calls for more to be done. COP 29 is the last meeting before the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 30), which will convene in November 2025 in Brazil. It will include the 30th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 30), the 20th meeting of the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 20), and the seventh meeting of the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 7).

As the window for action narrows, the results of COP 29 will play a pivotal role in determining whether we can bridge the gap between ambition and action. By harnessing collective will and embracing solutions that integrate nature, technology, and equity, we still have the opportunity to secure a more sustainable future for generations to come.