The 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB62), held in Bonn, Germany from 16th to 26th June 2025, marked a critical milestone as the UAE Belem Work Programme on Indicators approaches its conclusion at the end of the year. Negotiators, technical experts, Parties, and non-Party stakeholders convened to advance discussions on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA).
The GGA agenda attracted attention with an opening workshop on GGA, eight informal consultations, three informal-informals (inf-infs) and a final closing session on the last day. The debates were substantive and at times technical reflecting on the ambition of the GGA progress. Despite these efforts, Parties did not reach consensus on a few issues including:
- Structure of the indicators list
- Means of Implementation (MoI),
- Transformational Adaptation
Emerging Takeaways
Expert Engagement in the refinement process post SB62
Paragraph 13 of the SB62: Matters relating to the global goal on adaptation provided an additional mandate for the technical experts. They were invited to reduce and refine the consolidated list of indicators to no more than 100, globally applicable, indicators, including, where applicable, indicators for enabling factors for the implementation of adaptation action, means of implementation, cross-cutting considerations and all subcomponents of the thematic and dimensional targets referred to in paragraphs 9–10 of decision 2/CMA.5.
The work of the experts continues immediately after the closure of SB62, with the following timeline:
- July to August 2025: Refinement of indicators, peer review, and metadata verification.
- By August 2025: Submission of the report by the technical experts on the refined list of indicators.
Guidance on the review process
The experts were also given additional guidance to consider in the process of the review and refinement:
- All entries in the final list of potential indicators are to be phrased as measurable indicators rather than statements;
- Indicators that describe impacts, exposures or hazards without capturing adaptation relevance are to be refined;
- Existing indicators derived from other conventions and frameworks are to be made adaptation-specific;
- Indicators for measuring climate change mitigation are to be removed;
- Indicators that capture adaptation responses to risks and impacts associated with different warming scenarios in the context of the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement are to be included;
- Qualitative narratives are to be included, where possible, to explain the context behind some of the quantitative statistics;
- Sub-indicators should capture various contexts of adaptation action, enabling Parties to choose which indicators they will report on in the light of their national circumstances;
- Indicators for means of implementation and other factors that enable the implementation of adaptation action are to be included, and those that are not relevant to the Paris Agreement are to be removed;
- Indicators for means of implementation to measure (1) access, (2) quality and (3) adaptation finance, including provision, in line with the Paris Agreement, to help Parties address needs and gaps in implementing the global goal on adaptation.
Baku Adaptation Roadmap and Transformational Adaptation
Parties did not agree on any text; however, discussions will continue at COP 30.
Call to action
As the UAE Belem Work Programme approaches its conclusion at COP30, countries are called upon to streamline their Monitoring and Evaluation processes to effectively operationalize the GGA at the national level. Strengthening these processes will be useful to ensure that countries are well positioned to report on and demonstrate progress towards the GGA within the framework of the Global Stock take (GST).