Bridging the gap to $365 billion

By Patricia Tahirindray, Programme Coordinator at the Centre Arrupe Madagascar

November 18 was a full and important day at COP30, focused on concrete discussions about adaptation finance.

We began early with the Malagasy delegation, together with the Minister of Environment, the Minister of Youth, and a member of Parliament. One concern came back clearly: despite many promises, access to climate finance remains very limited. Madagascar called for more transparency and for projects that truly reflect national priorities.

Yesterday’s Adaptation Fund Dialogue reminded me of the scale of the challenge: global adaptation needs now exceed USD 365 billion per year, while the Fund is still under-funded and hard to access.

Today, I wanted to understand more how different actors respond to this gap. The session on the Investors Resilience Challenge showed how far private finance still is from fully engaging in adaptation.

Later, another session: the ex-post evaluations of Adaptation Fund projects gave concrete examples of progress in Ghana and Cuba, but also long-term challenges.

So yes, we already know the solutions, the science is clear, and the needs are well documented. What is missing now is the political will to fund adaptation at the level required, before losses and damages become impossible to repair.