COP31 And The 59 Belém Climate Adaptation Indicators: What They Mean For Global Climate Action

The adoption of 59 Belém Adaptation Indicators at COP30 gave countries a common set of measures to track progress towards the Global Goal on Adaptation. As COP31 begins in Türkiye, the challenge is to establish whether these measures can track actual improvements in people's lives, particularly in countries facing the greatest climate risks.

But agreeing on what to measure does not establish whether people are becoming safer from extreme heat, floods, droughts and other climate impacts.

Why measuring climate adaptation has been difficult

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, established the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) under Article 7. It calls for enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change. Unlike greenhouse gas emissions, which can be measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, adaptation has no single unit of measurement. The risks facing a coastal settlement threatened by rising sea levels are different from those confronting an agricultural region experiencing prolonged drought.

At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, countries adopted the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience. It established 11 targets for 2030: seven thematic targets covering water, food, health, ecosystems, infrastructure, poverty eradication and livelihoods, and cultural heritage; and four dimensional targets covering impact, vulnerability and risk assessment; planning; implementation; and monitoring, evaluation and learning.

What are the 59 Belém Adaptation Indicators?

At COP30 in November 2025, countries adopted 59 indicators under the GGA, selected from 100 potential indicators developed by 78 technical experts convened by the UNFCCC.

The indicators are linked to the 11 targets of the UAE Framework, covering areas such as food systems, water security, health, infrastructure, ecosystems, poverty eradication, livelihoods and cultural heritage. They also address cross-cutting issues such as governance, equity, finance, technology transfer and capacity-building.

The indicators are voluntary, non-prescriptive, non-punitive and country-driven. The COP30 decision says they cannot be used as a condition for developing countries to access adaptation funding and do not create new financial obligations or commitments. Parties are invited to integrate them into relevant national reporting and planning processes.

Their adoption was contentious. Some countries objected to the late release of the final text and changes to the list developed by technical experts. Panama called the outcome a ‘rough draft’ and said it erased two years of expert work, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development's account of the COP30 negotiations.

A May 2026 working paper by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Unpacking the Belém Decision on the Global Goal on Adaptation, examines what is needed to make the framework operational. It identifies gaps in data, capacity and methodologies as potential barriers to the indicators' implementation. The Belém decision does not establish standardised global methodologies or data-collection processes for the indicators. Definitions, metadata and methods still require technical work. The OECD identifies countries' second biennial transparency reports under the Paris Agreement as a possible starting point for testing the indicators and identifying data gaps.

The problem with measuring resilience

Even when governments collect information on adaptation projects, establishing whether those interventions work is more difficult. A completed flood warning system does not prove that everyone in an exposed area receives an alert or can evacuate. Similarly, a city may invest in cooling infrastructure without adequately protecting outdoor workers, informal settlements and low-income households from extreme heat.

National averages can conceal inequalities between regions and communities. An improvement in a country's overall access to water, for instance, does not necessarily mean that drought-affected villages have secured reliable supplies.

A CDKN report published in October 2026 examines the challenge through eight case studies across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. Authored by Mairi Dupar, Measures of Adaptation at Multiple Scales: Evidence to Understand Progress Under the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Global Biodiversity Framework examines how adaptation and ecosystem restoration are assessed across different social, ecological and governance settings.

The report finds that local and project-level monitoring systems already generate substantial evidence about adaptation outcomes. However, countries need resources to bring fragmented information together for sustained national assessments. It also argues that adaptation measurement must go beyond physical and environmental indicators to account for rights, equity, agency and other social outcomes.

Ahmedabad launched its Heat Action Plan in 2013 to improve preparedness for extreme heat. That same year, Odisha evacuated almost one million people ahead of Cyclone Phailin, according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. Assessing the longer-term adaptation value of such measures, however, requires examining who benefits, whether vulnerable populations are reached and whether protection can be sustained.

Can COP31 turn indicators into action?

Developing countries need resources not only to implement adaptation measures but also to maintain the institutions, data systems and monitoring mechanisms required to assess their effectiveness.

UNEP's Adaptation Gap Report 2026: Ready? Not, published on November 4, estimates that developing countries will need around US$305 billion annually for adaptation by 2035. Based on national climate plans and model-based estimates, the figure largely excludes the private sector's own adaptation needs, which could almost double the total.

International public adaptation finance from developed to developing countries reached US$28.2–31.7 billion in 2024, an increase of approximately US$1 billion over the previous year. Even if the COP30 aspiration to triple international public adaptation finance by 2035 is achieved, UNEP estimates that the flows would cover only 20–29 per cent of developing countries' needs after inflation adjustment.

"The world is not ready to adapt to current climactic [sic] conditions, never mind what overshoot of 1.5°C will bring," Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, said in the report's accompanying announcement. She called on countries to intensify efforts to address the adaptation finance gap.

The gap raises an accountability question for the indicators. Developing countries may be assessed on their ability to plan and implement adaptation, but their progress also depends on access to international finance, technology and institutional support.

At the June 2026 Bonn climate talks, countries failed to agree on the composition of the proposed task force on metadata and methodologies for the indicators, according to the IISD's Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Disagreements also emerged over the role of Parties in the task force and references to means of implementation, including adaptation finance.

COP30 also established the Belém–Addis Vision on Adaptation, a two-year process intended to develop guidance on operationalising the indicators by COP32 in 2027. Its work includes improving methodologies and metadata, while encouraging countries to test the indicators and share their experiences.

CSTEP's Indu K Murthy warned that if the technical task force is not established at COP31, the indicators could miss the window to inform the second Stocktake. She said a comprehensive assessment of adaptation progress using the framework could consequently be delayed until 2033. This is a projection, not an official UNFCCC timeline.

COP31's test is whether the framework can move beyond counting policies and projects to establish whether communities are actually becoming less vulnerable to climate change.