Developing countries need at least $215 billion a year for climate adaptation
Even if the carbon-cutting goals of the landmark Paris Agreement are met, the planet will warm between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, in the coming decades. According to a new report from the United Nations, that warming will likely kill the Indian Ocean’s coral reefs, cause the Antarctic ice sheet to melt, and turn parts of the Amazon rainforest into savannas. Adapting to these changes and others in developing countries will cost as much as $ 215 billion to $ 387 billion every year this decade, the report found.
Those figures are far greater than the amount that the United States and other wealthy countries have been setting aside for lower-income ones: In 2021, developing countries received just $ 21 billion for adaptation. Even as the effects of a warming world grew more dire, …