s the world watches COP30 in Belém, a critical reassessment is underway. The long–standing primacy of emissions reduction is finally being confronted by warranted demands for adaptation and the tug of energy security imperatives. The question is no longer simply what we should do, but how we prioritize and who leads.
Mitigation remains indispensable. Without meaningful emissions cuts, the world’s climate trajectory will only get more precarious. Yet the imbalance in global climate finance tells a stark story: adaptation finance for developing countries stood at roughly $26 billion in 2023, while the annual needs are estimated well above $300 billion. The scale of the shortfall makes clear that resilience is no longer optional for climate–vulnerable nations, it is crucial.
Why has adaptation been sidelined? Much of the explanation lies in investability. Mitigation assets such as renewables offer clearer revenue streams, which private capital can engage. Adaptation projects such as peatland restoration, flood defenses, drought–resistant agriculture, resilient infrastructure deliver long–term benefits that are harder to monetize. The usual performative repertoire of climate targets often doesn’t last beyond election cycles (or typically, its candidates), making adaptation the casualty. These structural biases mean the global architecture remains skewed toward mitigation, even as adaptation urgency rises.
In parallel, the energy transition is encountering new constraints. Post–pandemic supply shocks, the war in Ukraine and heightened geopolitical tensions have placed energy security front and center in national strategies. Nations face a dual mandate: accelerate clean energy deployment and shore up supply, grid resilience and critical–mineral access. If either path is neglected, be it decarbonization or energy security, the transition gets engulfed in even more uncertainty.
COP30 is more than another checkpoint on the climate calendar; it is a test of coherence. For too long, mitigation has carried the moral weight of ambition while adaptation has been relegated to the margins, as if it is not a measure for survival. The moment demands that we bring these strands together and treat adaptation not as an afterthought but as an equal pillar of the global response. The energy transition, too, must be seen through a dual lens: decarbonization for the planet, and security for the people who inhabit it.
Three shifts could make that reframing real.
- First, the world needs a credible global goal for adaptation finance.
- Second, the financial architecture must evolve: blended finance, resilience bonds, and concessional mechanisms should make adaptation investable, not charitable.
- Third, cooperation on the energy transition must grapple honestly with the geopolitics beneath it, supply chains, mineral dependencies, and the social contract of a just transition for workers and communities.
Responsibility is diffuse but inescapable. Donor governments must move from incrementalism to predictability, directing real resources toward resilience rather than symbolic top–ups for mitigation. Climate diplomacy itself must expand its field of vision: beyond emissions targets to include adaptation, security, and justice as interdependent forms of climate credibility.
COP30 cannot be another recital of promises. It must be about alignment, about whether the world’s political, financial, and ethical frameworks finally converge on a shared understanding of what sustainability really means. If mitigation continues to dominate budgets while adaptation remains a footnote, fractures will deepen between the secure and the exposed. If the energy transition proceeds without reckoning with its social and material underpinnings, it will falter under its own contradictions.
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Rebalancing adaptation, mitigation, and the new energy diplomacy
Image by Gidon Pico from Pixabay
November 18, 2025
At climate gatherings in the past, mitigation has carried the moral weight of ambition while adaptation has been relegated to the margins. Progress we bring these strands together and treat adaptation not as an afterthought but as an equal pillar of the global response, writes Namrata Bhandari.
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s the world watches COP30 in Belém, a critical reassessment is underway. The long–standing primacy of emissions reduction is finally being confronted by warranted demands for adaptation and the tug of energy security imperatives. The question is no longer simply what we should do, but how we prioritize and who leads.
Mitigation remains indispensable. Without meaningful emissions cuts, the world’s climate trajectory will only get more precarious. Yet the imbalance in global climate finance tells a stark story: adaptation finance for developing countries stood at roughly $26 billion in 2023, while the annual needs are estimated well above $300 billion. The scale of the shortfall makes clear that resilience is no longer optional for climate–vulnerable nations, it is crucial.
Why has adaptation been sidelined? Much of the explanation lies in investability. Mitigation assets such as renewables offer clearer revenue streams, which private capital can engage. Adaptation projects such as peatland restoration, flood defenses, drought–resistant agriculture, resilient infrastructure deliver long–term benefits that are harder to monetize. The usual performative repertoire of climate targets often doesn’t last beyond election cycles (or typically, its candidates), making adaptation the casualty. These structural biases mean the global architecture remains skewed toward mitigation, even as adaptation urgency rises.
In parallel, the energy transition is encountering new constraints. Post–pandemic supply shocks, the war in Ukraine and heightened geopolitical tensions have placed energy security front and center in national strategies. Nations face a dual mandate: accelerate clean energy deployment and shore up supply, grid resilience and critical–mineral access. If either path is neglected, be it decarbonization or energy security, the transition gets engulfed in even more uncertainty.
COP30 is more than another checkpoint on the climate calendar; it is a test of coherence. For too long, mitigation has carried the moral weight of ambition while adaptation has been relegated to the margins, as if it is not a measure for survival. The moment demands that we bring these strands together and treat adaptation not as an afterthought but as an equal pillar of the global response. The energy transition, too, must be seen through a dual lens: decarbonization for the planet, and security for the people who inhabit it.
Three shifts could make that reframing real.
- First, the world needs a credible global goal for adaptation finance.
- Second, the financial architecture must evolve: blended finance, resilience bonds, and concessional mechanisms should make adaptation investable, not charitable.
- Third, cooperation on the energy transition must grapple honestly with the geopolitics beneath it, supply chains, mineral dependencies, and the social contract of a just transition for workers and communities.
Responsibility is diffuse but inescapable. Donor governments must move from incrementalism to predictability, directing real resources toward resilience rather than symbolic top–ups for mitigation. Climate diplomacy itself must expand its field of vision: beyond emissions targets to include adaptation, security, and justice as interdependent forms of climate credibility.
COP30 cannot be another recital of promises. It must be about alignment, about whether the world’s political, financial, and ethical frameworks finally converge on a shared understanding of what sustainability really means. If mitigation continues to dominate budgets while adaptation remains a footnote, fractures will deepen between the secure and the exposed. If the energy transition proceeds without reckoning with its social and material underpinnings, it will falter under its own contradictions.
