The Climate Adaptation Summit came to a close last week with new and additional pledges on adaptation finance from some bilateral and multilateral donors. But did new pledges shift the dial enough to meet Least Developed Countries’ (LDCs) needs? LDC leaders’ top message from the summit was that the quantity of adaptation finance must grow, and the quality or conditions of the finance must also shift.

His Excellency Sonam P. Wangdi has indicated that channeling finance to the world’s poorest, most climate-affected people and putting the protection of climate and nature at the heart of economic recovery from Covid-19 are priority global challenges for 2021.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced two events to take place in Italy, in September-October 2021, in the lead up to COP26.

An event on financing adaptation at the Climate Adaptation Conference highlighted the vast, under-exploited potential for investment in climate-related disaster risk reduction, especially in Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries. This could avert significant loss and damage from extreme events – before disaster strikes.

Young people from 140 countries ran their own online climate conference, Mock COP26, in early December to forge a youth-led plan for transformational action on climate change.