How, and how far, can we still adapt to climate change?

Welcome and introduction.

Opening discussion to frame the conference and its main challenges.

A special surprise awaits attendees on the day.

With more than two thirds of the world's population set to live in cities by 2050, and ahead of the IPCC Special Report on Cities (SR Cities, 2027), this session examines urban adaptation in the face of intensifying and increasingly interconnected risks. It pays particular attention to informal settlements, which could be home to as many as three billion people, and explores the persistent gap between planning and implementation, as well as the risks of maladaptation and green gentrification.

Lunch break for in-person participants; live stream resumes at 1:30 PM.

The concept of Locally Led Adaptation (LLA) is receiving growing attention as a key approach to addressing climate change. Built around eight guiding principles, LLA seeks to foster more inclusive and sustainable solutions. Climate finance actors have complementary roles to play in supporting and scaling up this agenda, with greater synergies still needed. This session examines LLA’s practical contribution and identifies the conditions required for its implementation to be truly transformative.

Coffee break for in-person participants. Live stream resumes at 3:30 PM.

This session addresses the methodological and political challenges of assessing adaptation, brought into sharp focus by the adoption of the 59 Belém indicators at COP30. While these metrics are intended to help track the Global Goal on Adaptation under the Paris Agreement, their operationalization raises questions, notably the risk of favoring what is measurable at the expense of deeper transformations. The session therefore also explores qualitative methods capable of capturing essential dimensions of adaptation that aggregate indicators struggle to take into account.

Closing remarks and preview of the second day's program.

Opening address to set out the day's key challenges.

As climate risks intensify, the question of the limits of adaptation has emerged as a major scientific and political issue, with successive institutional milestones culminating in the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). Insurance mechanisms are useful tools but have real limitations. In the most exposed territories, the question is no longer only how to adapt, but under what conditions and for how long a territory remains livable, as well as who decides this, on what basis, and with what alternatives.

Isn’t the greatest challenge researchers and practitioners have faced over the past 30 years, in fact, the difficulty of imagining resilient, inclusive and desirable futures together with all stakeholders? Visions of adaptation are diverse, yet dominant narratives remain largely technocratic and top-down, often reinforcing existing power structures. Making these visions explicit allows them to be debated and reoriented; broadening the range of possible futures also broadens the range of solutions and helps reduce the risk of maladaptation.

Lunch break for in-person participants. Live stream resumes at 1:30 PM. 

As highlighted in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, incremental adjustments are no longer enough. The challenge now is to combine them with transformational adaptation, involving systemic changes across territories and societies, while also developing a more nuanced understanding of transboundary risks. There is also a need for new methodologies that better connect past, present and long-term future timescales in order to define more robust adaptation pathways.

Once largely confined to environment ministries, adaptation is now becoming a key consideration in finance ministry decision-making. While the economic literature on adaptation has expanded, it remains fragmented. It tends to underestimate extreme and cascading impacts, struggles to account for deep uncertainty, and often overlooks long-term fiscal consequences. New tools are emerging to support finance ministries, including taxonomies, green budgeting and climate budget tagging, while public development banks have an important role to play in supporting their adoption.

Political issues related to adaptation.