Through the Global Negotiations Support initiative and the Global Climate Change Policy Fellowship programme, SLYCAN Trust supports negotiators from the Global South in their engagement with the UNFCCC and other multilateral processes. Aishath Reesha Suhail is a young negotiator from Maldives who works with the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy and is a SLYCAN Trust fellow since 2023. These are her reflections from participating in the Bonn Climate Change Conference 2024 (SB60).

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At the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB60) held in June 2024, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement were invited to assess progress in the formulation and implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This assessment was mandated by Decision 3/CP.26 in 2021, which requested the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) to initiate the assessment at SB60 and make recommendations on the matter for consideration and adoption by the Conference of the Parties at its 29^th session (COP29) in November 2024.

Assessing the progress in both the formulation and implementation of NAPs is a critical step towards further enhancing climate change adaptation in developing countries, supporting their adaptation planning and implementation efforts, and identifying existing gaps and challenges. It becomes even more crucial following the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake (GST), which calls on Parties to have their NAPs in place by 2025 and to have progressed in implementing them by 2030. 

With 2025 only four months away, it is important to note that to date, only 58 developing countries have formulated and submitted NAPs. It is clear that accelerated progress is needed to meet the call for the formulation of NAPs by 2025 and to have progressed in implementing them by 2030.

At the SB60 informal consultations on NAPs, developing countries detailed the many challenges they face in both formulating and implementing their NAPs. In particular, developing countries stressed the lengthy duration of up to five years taken to approve funding for the formulation of NAPs. The complexities in applying for readiness funding and the resource intensity of preparing and submitting adequate proposals have evidently been a hindrance on this front. The delay in approval also results in changes in the situation on the ground, rendering previously collected data irrelevant, posing further challenges in planning appropriate adaptation interventions. 

Developing countries highlighted that the needs regarding means of implementation are far from being met, and that support for the formulation of NAPs is not sufficient. With means of implementation lagging far behind, the purpose of formulating NAPs is unmet, as developing countries lack the fiscal, technical, and technological capacities to domestically fund their implementation, further stressing the need to prioritize and scale up public financing for adaptation. 

While countries noted the various channels of support within and outside the UNFCCC process, a key takeaway from the discussions under this agenda item was that support for formulation and implementation of NAPs remains insufficient to meet the needs of developing countries.

The draft text by the co-facilitators separately assessed the formulation and implementation of NAPs, as proposed by the G77 and China. It noted concern regarding the very limited number of developing country Parties that have NAPs. Throughout the negotiations, developing country Parties continued to emphasize the difficulties faced in formulating NAPs, and the lengthy duration (of up to five years) it may take a country to have funding approved from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to formulate their NAP.

On implementation, the text also noted the limited progress on implementing NAPs, pointing to limited resources and capacity constraints, and acknowledged the crucial role that public finance plays in advancing NAP implementation. Furthermore, it recalled relevant decisions urging developed country Parties to scale up the provision of the means of implementation for adaptation. The draft decision also explored challenges, obstacles, gaps, and needs, as well as best practices and recommendations for the future.

With significant divergence on the text as the session neared closing, Parties expressed concern at losing progress made at SB60, leading to the arrangement of additional informal consultations until the final day to work towards agreement. Following many hours of back and forth and lengthy huddles, it was decided that the draft text would be taken forward to COP29 as an informal note by the co-facilitators. Further discussions of this agenda item at SBI61 would take into consideration, in particular, this informal note agreed upon at SB60.

It is important that COP29 results in a robust outcome on the assessment to shift from national adaptation planning to implementation with the necessary urgency and at scale. Although progress made at the session was not lost, the divergence of opinions between developed and developing countries will need to be overcome to bring deliberations at the upcoming sessions at COP29 to a successful outcome.