How to Track Adaptation Progress: Key questions for the UAE-Belém work programme at COP 29

Adaptation Ambitions at COP 29: What’s at stake? 

Arriving in Baku for COP 29, most eyes will be turned toward the discussions on setting a new finance goal through the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Finance is an essential factor for ensuring governments, communities, companies, and other actors accelerate climate actions. While adaptation finance has increased from 2021–2022, it remains far below the Glasgow Climate Pact goal of developed countries doubling their adaptation finance from 2019 levels. Closing this gap is critical for achieving the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation (GGA). This year, countries will also be assessing progress to date on national adaptation plans (NAPs) and their implementation, setting key recommendations for the way forward. Finally, COP 29 talks will zero in on indicators for adaptation under the 2-year UAE-Belém work programme.   

What is the UAE-Belém work programme? 

Last year at COP 28, countries adopted the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience (UAE FGCR) that provided much-needed agreement for the definition and assessment of the GGA. The framework established under decision 2/CMA.5 includes 11 targets to guide the assessment of progress against the GGA: four related to the iterative adaptation cycle and seven thematic targets (see Figure 1).

This significant decision marked 8 years of work to advance, define, and agree on the framing of the GGA, which will shape the assessment of adaptation under the second global stocktake starting in 2026. But how should countries take this forward to ultimately accelerate adaptation? Part of the response is to develop indicators that can help countries track, assess, and inform adaptation and strengthen monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems nationally—but also globally. This is to be done through the 2-year UAE-Belém work programme.  

Progress of the UAE-Belém work programme to date 

While countries launched the work programme after COP 28, they only agreed to its modalities at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn (SB60) this past June.  

The SB60 decision allowed the co-chairs of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice, with the support of the secretariat, to convene experts across the globe to map out existing indicators that could be used under the framework and identify needs for new ones. In September, a group of 78 experts got organized into eight groups (focusing on the seven UAE FGCR thematic targets and the iterative adaptation cycle) to review over 5,000 indicators compiled from submissions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).    

After the second workshop of the UAE-Belém work programme in October, it was agreed the experts should also consider an additional 5,000 indicators compiled by the Adaptation Committee. The experts were then tasked with mapping the indicators against the 11 UAE FGCR targets ahead of COP 29. This task is not without challenges, not only because of the methodological issues linked to the lack of clear definitions to measure the targets, but also because the experts had not been given a clear mandate or instructions to do their work.  

A smaller, more refined set of indicators, along with a note describing each group’s progress, their findings, challenges, and gaps, will become the basis for countries to start discussing next steps in Baku. The report is not yet available at the time of publication.   

Seven questions for ambitious yet pragmatic indicator outputs ahead of COP 29 

Finalizing a set of indicators within a year can seem like an overwhelming task. Yet, the global community has enthusiastically participated in submissions and shown increased support for the work programme. As such, a substantial output from the work programme is possible by COP 30. 

To achieve a pragmatic yet ambitious output from the work programme that truly supports countries in advancing MEL and reporting for adaptation, countries must provide clarity on the following questions at COP 29: 

What should be the outputs of the UAE-Belém work programme? 

Without clearer agreement on what they are working toward, it will remain difficult for experts and countries to create a coherent and useful set of indicators. The question of whether there should be global and/or national indicators is crucial. Global indicators would be especially useful in providing guidance and incentives for countries to track and report on the progress across the iterative adaptation cycle. Further questions arise as to the format and dissemination of these outputs—should they include spreadsheets, written documents, online resources, and so forth. Whatever format is selected should complement existing initiatives such as the Adaptation Knowledge Portal.  

What tasks and approaches should experts take to ensure coherent outputs?

From the draft conclusion of SB60, experts will be identifying new indicators, amongst other tasks. This is remarkably tricky due to vagueness in the text defining the 11 targets. Rephrasing the targets is out of the question, as this equates to re-opening carefully negotiated text with politically balanced nuances. Tasked with being self-organized, experts have used different methodologies to refine indicators across groups—albeit with many similarities. To avoid having siloed sets of indicators, countries should provide direction on a common approach and for collaboration between groups. Additionally, countries should agree on priority tasks and associated approaches, such as: creating new methodologies; defining the scope, aggregation, and data readiness of selected indicators; identifying trade-offs and interlinkages between the expert groups; and articulating guidance on how to use the outputs coherently and avoid siloes. 

How to address Means of Implementation as part of the work programme? 

The ongoing debate on whether and how to include Means of Implementation (MoI) in adaptation negotiation items also finds grounds in the UAE-Belém work programme. The UAE FGCR core paragraphs do not include MoI specifically, which serves as a precedent for developed countries to argue against any inclusion of tracking MoI as part of the work programme outputs. However, the COP 28 decision duly emphasizes the role of finance and MoI as an enabling factor for adaptation action. Developing countries argue for the need to assess the adequacy, not solely the effectiveness, of adaptation action and support to truly understand progress towards the GGA.  

How to ensure that gender equality and social inclusion are systematically integrated into the outputs?

Adaptation aims to reduce vulnerability to climate impacts, which is closely intertwined with other systemic and underlying causes of inequality and vulnerability. It is therefore crucial that indicators tracking collective progress on adaptation also include gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) considerations as part of adaption action and support. This means including both indicators tracking GESI-specific outputs and outcomes, as well as disaggregating other indicators. 

What are the activities of the work programme in 2025?

With the draft conclusions at SB60 only covering the period of work until COP 29, countries must define what other work, aside from the work of the experts’ groups, the UAE-Belém work programme will undertake in 2025. It’s especially important to continue including other actors, especially vulnerable groups that have not necessarily been nominated as experts. There is currently only one workshop ahead of COP 30 planned. Countries can suggest further submissions, additional formal workshops, and invitations for other organizations to fund informal workshops that would contribute to outputs.  

How will outputs link with the other UNFCCC items—notably on finance and transparency?

With the UAE FGCR adopted only last year, there is a need to integrate the new framework—and its forthcoming indicators—into other activities and items under the UNFCCC. This includes considering how UAE FGCR and work programme outputs will be included as part of current reporting and communication instruments of the Enhanced Transparency Framework; how the potential adaptation portion of the NCQG will be tracked and aligned with the UAE FGCR, and how reporting for adaptation can be practically implemented in relation to activities related to loss and damage, to avoid siloes and enhance complementarity. Countries should include clear decision text mentioning other key negotiation items and linking outputs with potential new work related to the GGA after the UAE-Belém work programme.  

How should the experts organize themselves to ensure all views are represented?

The convened experts include a balance of geographic and gender backgrounds, yet they are self-funded. Their ability to contribute to the groups, workshops, and discussions varies according to their organizations’ capacities and resources. While there seems to be a spirit of collegiality, countries should discuss the ethics and limitations of the current approach. Despite the short timelines, countries should agree on an approach to ensure and report on adequate facilitation for all perspectives to be heard. A simple conflict or dispute resolution mechanism can also help manage differences in expert views if biases or discrimination occur.  

Aligning global and national efforts for transparency and progress on adaptation 

Most importantly, countries and experts must remember that indicators for the UAE-Belém work programme are part of several components in the wider architecture of improving evidence and raising ambition for adaptation under the Paris Agreement. In fact, countries are the ultimate owners and drivers for generating the evidence on adaptation needed to inform the UAE FGRC through their MEL systems for national adaptation plan processes. Developing and implementing MEL systems is an adaptation action in itself, with MEL being both a distinct phase and a dedicated set of activities throughout the adaptation process.  

While reporting and MEL on adaptation may be voluntary, it is now enshrined in the UAE FGCR’s goal for "all Parties [to] have designed, established and operationalized a system for monitoring, evaluation and learning for their national adaptation efforts and have built the required institutional capacity to fully implement the system [by 2030]." 

Thinking beyond the UAE-Belém work programme, countries will face the challenge of better aligning the provision of evidence for adaptation, the planned assessments, and existing instruments for communication and reporting under the Enhanced Transparency Framework. A critical task would be to update the guidelines for reporting on adaptation under the Biennial Transparency Reports ahead of the next deadline in 2026. Ambitious thinking would also involve creating linkages with other international agreements and frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Biodiversity Framework and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.  

Ultimately, with the main discussions on the NCQG this year, it is imperative to remember that if there is no finance to implement adaptation actions, there is no progress to track. Generating evidence on adaptation progress relies on finance to advance both actions and the MEL systems that track and inform them.  

To learn more about national MEL systems for NAP processes, see the NAP Global Network and the Adaptation Committee’s Toolkit for monitoring, evaluation, and learning for national adaptation plan processes.