STUMBLING BLOCKS: SA’s triple adaptation finance fails to make COP31 agenda

Hopes were high that the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) would build on the momentum of last year’s climate talks, which sought to triple the money developed nations contribute every year so the countries that contributed least to human-induced climate change could adapt and shield communities from a warming world.

However, after Brazil's André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, who served as COP30 president, handed the gavel to Turkish Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, the current president, on Monday, 9 November, during the opening plenary parties failed to agree to put triple adaptation finance on the main agenda.

This is despite the fact that developed nations, particularly the European Union (EU) group, committed to putting triple finance on the agenda this year at the end of COP30 to iron out the details on how the increased funding would be reached.

At COP30, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change parties agreed to increase the amount of money earmarked for adaptation to between $85-billion and $120-billion annually by 2035.

However, South Africa and many developing countries in the Global South are pushing hard for guaranteed, trackable funding to help vulnerable nations build climate-resilient infrastructure, protect water sources and handle droughts before disasters strike.

As the deadlock was quietly developing behind closed doors in negotiation rooms, the Climate Action Network (CAN) held a press briefing about the stalemate.

“We’re coming into this COP while the world is burning. We have seen climate impacts throughout the year across the world getting more frequent and more devastating. We bear witness to this, and many of us have actually lived through this climate crisis and its impact,” said Climate Action Network Executive Director Tasneem Essop.

“However, we are already coming into this COP recognising that those who have obligations to deliver, the developed world, have already signalled that they will not be coming to this COP with any additional finance commitments,” she said.

Climate Action Network is an observer organisation in the COP and therefore knows what is happening in the negotiations that are closed to the public.

Speaking to Daily Maverick on the sidelines of events on Monday night, Sara Shaw, Director of Campaigns and Networks at climate advocacy organisation 350.org, said that while developing nations pushed and succeeded in getting broader climate finance on the agenda, the proposal to triple adaptation finance did not secure its own specific track on the agenda, creating procedural confusion and leaving it without a dedicated home. 

“On the tripling of climate finance adaptation, I think it seemed like it was definitely out of the picture, and then it got a bit more confused this morning. It doesn’t have its own place on the agenda. Countries no doubt will bring it up in different parts of the agenda, but it hasn’t really got its own home. And so that is quite a problem because that was something that was a real commitment from developed countries last year. They kind of almost used it last year in order to get some agreement, but there’s so little precision about it. It’s such a vague commitment at the moment that I think countries were really, really keen that there was a time frame put on it,” Shaw said.

But that does not mean South Africa has abandoned its mission. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment confirmed to Daily Maverick that the haggling, which SA’s lead negotiator Maesela Kekana was handling on behalf of the country, went well into the night and continued this morning as the African group and other interested parties fought to get on the agenda to ensure that the issue would be well aired throughout the negotiations, and would hopefully result in firm commitments by the end of the two-week conference.

Why adequate adaptation finance so important

The failure of countries to agree that triple adaptation finance should pass muster to make it on the agenda comes against a backdrop of increased climate impacts on the ground.

The World Meteorological Organization also released its State of the Climate Update 2026 on Monday, which painted a sobering picture of global climate conditions.

“[The report] brings scientific evidence to the heart of our discussions at COP31. The science is extremely robust. Yet again, we are reporting a series of broken records, and current greenhouse gas levels reveal that there is no end in sight. The past 12 years have been the warmest on record; the past four years, including 2026, are the top four,” World Meteorological Organisation Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said during the release of the report.

The 2026 update, a critical assessment of the world’s climate system, warned that sustained elevated temperatures, turbocharged by a super El Niño, and heightened extreme weather events would continue well into 2027.

The outlook found that:

• The global mean near-surface temperature anomaly averaged from January to September 2026 (1.47°C) is comparable to the whole-year averages for 2025 (1.43°C) and 2023 (1.46°C) and lower than the 2024 record (1.55°C).

• Greenhouse gas levels reached a new record in 2025. Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 53% from around 278 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 to about 426.8 ppm in 2025.

• Ocean temperatures were the highest in recorded history in 2025, and continued to rise in 2026.

• Extreme events affected lives and livelihoods, undermined food security, deepened poverty and contributed to displacement across multiple regions.

Communities in South Africa have only just begun to experience the consequences of the super El Niño. From food and water security to public health risks, Daily Maverick has reported on the threats elevated temperatures pose. 

Earlier in the year, the nation also experienced extreme weather events. In January, historic floods swept through Limpopo and Mpumalanga, killing at least 30 people, damaging thousands of homes and causing billions of rand in infrastructure damage. Four months later, the Western Cape was hit, causing 11 fatalities, displacing more than 200,000 people, and battering the province’s agricultural sector.

This is why South Africa and other developing nations are pushing for adaptation finance, so that they can safeguard vulnerable communities from the consequences of a warming world.

What’s next for SA?

“Climate finance is key to unlocking progress everywhere, and we’re just not seeing it coming. What’s on the table is a real pittance compared with what is needed,” Shaw told Daily Maverick.

She added that without funding guarantees, global mitigation and transition demands place an unfair and unworkable burden on developing economies and least developed countries.

Shaw’s comments reflect several reports published by the United Nations Environment Programme before the negotiations.

The Limiting Overshoot Spotlight Report, released in September, found that a 1.5°C overshoot was now widely unavoidable and would occur within years, bringing more frequent extreme weather events globally.

The report found that best-case projections peaked at 1.8°C and others exceeded 2°C, and it proposed an “overshoot, peak and decline” strategy to minimise the risks of extreme weather, ecosystem loss and irreversible tipping points.

The strategy, which includes immediate emissions cuts, transformational adaptation and governed carbon dioxide removal, would theoretically bring the world back below 1.5°C and claw back progress on global heating.

But the Adaptation Gap report 2026 found that the world was not ready to deal with the consequences of temperatures above 1.5°C and that developing countries in particular would require roughly $305-billion annually by 2035 to build resilience and reduce risks. 

While the pushback from the developing countries certainly puts a kink in South Africa’s ambitions, Essop told Daily Maverick that all was not lost; if triple adaptation did not make it on the agenda, it would be negotiated on other platforms.

“If it doesn’t get onto the agenda, it doesn’t disappear. It goes back into the negotiation on the global goal for adaptation, and the fights will happen there,” she said.

She added that even if the climate talks didn’t deliver adequate adaptation finance by the end of the two weeks, the calls would continue until funds met the needs.

“If nothing moves here, this COP is coming to Africa next year. That’s where the big fights will happen. We want much higher than 120 billion per year. You know the unit reports identified the gap, and this is so small. So certainly if we don’t get anything here, the fight continues, and we’re going to land it in Africa next year in Addis,” Essop said.

Daily Maverick approached the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment repeatedly to get official comment from South Africa’s negotiating delegation, but despite being on the ground no official was available to speak to the publication. DM

This story was produced as part of the COP31 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organised by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, Informed Earth and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.