Bouknadel — The first day of the International Platform on Adaptation Metrics conference opened Monday morning with pointed questions about whether the world’s major climate and development frameworks are truly equipped to measure adaptation progress — or simply creating an illusion of accountability.
Following welcome remarks from Moroccan government officials, including Ahmed El Bouari, Minister of Agriculture and AAA Initiative Foundation’s President, and representatives from Brazil’s embassy and the UN Development Programme, IPAM chair Karl Schultz presented an overview of the platform’s evolution since its creation in 2020.
The first day’s substantive work included the examination of how adaptation metrics fit within broader global goals — a chapter of a reference paper IPAM will present at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
Four frameworks, four different stories
The presentation walked participants through a systematic analysis of how major UN frameworks handle adaptation measurement.
Starting with the SDG Paradox, the presentation revealed that while 82 Sustainable Development Goal targets align synergistically with adaptation, 54 of these are simultaneously threatened by climate impacts.
As for Sendai’s Blind Spot, the analysis of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction drew particular attention. Despite seven targets ranging from mortality reduction to economic loss prevention, the framework shows wildly variable adaptation alignment — from 70% for early warning systems down to just 37% for economic losses.
The focus on rapid-onset events like earthquakes and storms means that slow-onset climate threats — sea level rise, chronic drought, gradual temperature increases — largely escape measurement.
The Convention on Biological Diversity section of the presentation outlined how ecosystems serve dual functions in climate adaptation, as vulnerable systems requiring protection and as solution providers through Ecosystem-based Adaptation.
The analysis focused on a “quality-over-quantity measurement bias” — frameworks that count hectares of protected ecosystems without adequately measuring whether these interventions actually help people adapt or how effective they are at building resilience.
Desertification’s Missing Link, especially the Convention to Combat Desertification, received briefer treatment but revealed similar patterns. While climate change is recognized as a primary driver of desertification, and Land Degradation Neutrality strongly aligns with adaptation goals conceptually, current metrics focus on measuring degradation processes rather than adaptation outcomes.
The non-governmental alternative
A substantial portion of the morning presentation examined how non-governmental actors approach adaptation metrics differently. It outlined initiatives like Race to Resilience (targeting 4 billion people through 2,500+ partners), C40 Cities (comprehensive urban adaptation plans), the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (four-pillar risk framework), and the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (500 million farmers by 2030).
According to the findings, these actors move faster and innovate more freely than negotiated UN frameworks and are also not bound by consensus diplomacy, so they can pilot new measurement approaches and adjust quickly based on what works.
Breakout groups discussion
Following the chapter presentation, participants were divided into three parallel breakout groups, each led by one of the chapter authors. Groups grappled with four guiding questions distributed in advance.
The breakout discussions ran for an hour, with groups working through concrete examples. Groups examined how to measure whether a climate-resilient health clinic both advances disease reduction goals and enhances resilience to future climate shocks.
They also focused intensely on the attribution problem: when crop yields improve after an agricultural intervention, how much credit goes to the adaptation project versus favorable weather, market conditions, or other development programs?
Participants debated whether climate-specific modules added to existing monitoring systems might help isolate adaptation effects without requiring entirely new measurement infrastructure.
Conclusion of breakout group discussions
The plenary synthesis revealed a striking consensus across all breakout groups that were held following the presentation. The tension between top-down global alignment and bottom-up contextual relevance dominated discussions.
While participants acknowledged that top-down approaches offer clearer pathways for bureaucratic coordination, financing mechanisms, and enforcement, they recognized that this comes at the cost of local specificity and flexibility.
A critical insight emerged around practical implementation challenges — alignment becomes significantly more complex when accommodating diverse national approaches, raising thorny questions about finance flows, technical support, and institutional capacity.
Rather than seeking a single universal solution, participants advocated for a framework-based approach: legislating systematic processes for developing local indicators rather than prescribing the indicators themselves. This would allow context-specific metrics to emerge through consistent methodologies.
The discussions concluded with calls for greater investment in experimentation and innovation — embracing multiple approaches, testing what works in different contexts, and resisting the temptation to prematurely lock in solutions.
