8 November 2017: UN Environment (UNEP) issued its third global Adaptation Gap Report, prepared in collaboration with the Global Centre of Excellence on Climate Adaptation. The report focuses on ways forward to assess progress towards the global goal on adaptation.

Titled ‘The Adaptation Gap Report: Towards Global Assessment,’ the publication addresses issues relating to frameworks, comprising concepts, methodologies and data. This is different from the previous reports, which assessed specific dimensions of the adaptation gap.

The report highlights that the SDGs and the Sendai Framework for DRR offer considerable opportunities for alignment through shared indicators, joint implementation, capacity building and creation of policy support.

The report explores opportunities and challenges associated with assessing progress on adaptation at the global level, synthesizes information relevant for the ongoing work under the UNFCCC to prepare for the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and outlines key insights for informing an assessment of global progress on adaptation.

The report highlights that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) offer considerable opportunities for alignment through shared indicators, joint implementation, capacity building and creation of policy support.

The report finds, inter alia, that frameworks that are based on nationally determined proximity-to-target approaches have the greatest potential to respect a diversity of national contexts while facilitating global assessment of progress. It cautions that a global review of adequacy and effectiveness, which typically involves the use of evaluative metrics, is unlikely to be achievable through standardized or quantifiable indicators alone.

The report also: concludes that a transparent assessment of global progress is facilitated if national reporting of descriptive metrics is clearly distinguished from evaluative metrics; urges focus on the contribution made to a result rather than strict attribution; and calls for longitudinal assessment of progress on adaptation, taking into account information from third parties, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), other international bodies and the broader research community.

The publication launching event took place in Bonn, Germany, in the margins of the UN Climate Change Conference, on 8 November 2017. [The Adaptation Gap Report: Towards Global Assessment] [Executive Summary] [Publication Landing Page] [UN Environment Press Release] [UNFCCC Press Release] [UN SDGs Press Release]