Research for climate adaptation

Adaptation to climate change must be ramped up urgently. We propose three avenues to transform ambition to action: improve tracking of actions and progress, upscale investment especially in critical areas, and accelerate learning through practice. Ongoing climate impacts are outpacing global mitigation efforts. The reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show that extreme events are increasing in frequency, intensity, and duration throughout the world. We have entered a climate beyond the range experienced in human history and we must learn to live in that emerging reality. As a result, adaptation needs to ‘increase ambition’ in the terminology of the upcoming 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Glasgow.