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AS DEADLY storms rip through the Caribbean, a new United Nations report delivers a sobering warning: the world is failing to prepare for the climate it has already created.

UNEP’s Adaptation Gap Report 2025, aptly titled Running on Empty, finds that developing nations will need between US$310 and 365 billion annually by 2035 to cope with intensifying climate impacts. Yet, international public finance for adaptation fell to just US$26 billion in 2023, down from US$28 billion the previous year. The result: only one-twelfth of what’s needed is being delivered.

This gap is not an abstract number. It’s visible in the wreckage of homes, farms, and economies across our region. Last week, Hurricane Melissa, the strongest-ever storm to hit Jamaica, tore through the Caribbean, leaving destruction equivalent to nearly 30 per cent of the island’s GDP. With at least 75 lives lost and damages exceeding US$50 billion, Melissa is not just another storm; it is a case study in the cost of global inaction.

A rapid attribution study found that climate change made Melissa four times more likely and increased its wind speeds by 7 per cent, raising damages by around 12 per cent. For Haiti, Jamaica, and other small island developing states, such storms bring unbearable losses eroding livelihoods, tourism revenues, and vital infrastructure. These countries contribute the least to global emissions yet bear the highest costs.

The pattern repeats globally. This year’s monsoon floods in Pakistan displaced seven million people and destroyed thousands of homes. Whether in South Asia or the Caribbean, the message is clear: the failure to invest in adaptation is costing lives.

Adaptation is not a distant goal; it is an urgent necessity. It means building stronger flood defenses, adopting climate-smart agriculture, and developing social protection systems that safeguard the most vulnerable. Research by the International Institute for Environment and Development shows that every US$1 invested early in resilience saves more than US$5 in avoided losses. Yet, the world continues to spend far more on disaster relief than on prevention.

This failure is not just wasteful — it is self-defeating. Every dollar delayed multiplies the human and economic toll. In Haiti, where communities are already grappling with political instability, weak infrastructure, and high poverty, each storm magnifies vulnerabilities. The Caribbean, with its densely populated coastal areas and economies heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture, cannot afford to treat adaptation as optional.

At COP29 in Baku, governments pledged through the Baku to Belém Roadmap to mobilise US$1.3 trillion by 2035, including at least US$300 billion annually for developing nations. On paper, this looks ambitious. In reality, it falls far short of what is needed. Adjusted for inflation, adaptation costs could reach US$440–520 billion per year by 2035, and the US$300 billion target covers both mitigation and adaptation, with no separate adaptation goal yet defined.

Adaptation finance was meant to help nations prepare for rising seas, harsher droughts, and lethal floods. Yet, when those funds don’t arrive, countries are forced to borrow. In 2023, 59 least developed countries and Small Island Developing States paid US$37 billion to service their debts and received only US$32 billion in climate finance. These aren’t productive investments but emergency debts taken just to rebuild what has already been lost.

This is the new face of global inequality: countries that contributed least to the crisis are being made to pay twice — first through climate impacts, and then through debt. And while the rhetoric of ‘resilience’ fills summit halls, the financial architecture remains rigged against the Global South. Only 15 per cent of adaptation finance in recent years has been delivered as grants; the rest comes as loans. For every dollar of ‘climate support,’ developing nations are paying back many more in interest.

The moral and economic absurdity is staggering. The IIED estimates that every US$1 invested in early adaptation saves at least US$5 in avoided losses. Yet the international community continues to treat resilience as an afterthought, not a necessity. Meanwhile, the Loss and Damage Fund—announced with much fanfare at COP28 — remains largely empty, starved by the same rich countries that have pumped trillions into fossil fuel subsidies and corporate bailouts.

There are three urgent steps the global community must take to avert this collapse.

First, adaptation finance must be non-debt-creating. Grants, not loans, should form the backbone of resilience funding. Climate disasters are not development failures—they are external shocks imposed on vulnerable economies by centuries of industrial pollution. To charge interest on survival is an act of climate injustice.

Second, global lending must be reformed. Multilateral development banks and the IMF should integrate climate vulnerability into debt assessments and offer automatic debt suspension clauses in the wake of major disasters. The current model — where countries borrow at high rates to rebuild while creditors profit — is morally bankrupt.

Third, regional adaptation cooperation must be strengthened. From MENA’s shared drought resilience to South Asia’s early warning systems, collective investment in adaptation can deliver massive social and economic dividends. Regional funds, backed by concessional finance and local expertise, can bypass the bottlenecks of global bureaucracy.

Adaptation is not charity. It is reparative justice and economic common sense. Without it, the world’s poorest will be forced to rebuild the same roads, schools, and homes after every storm, each time at a higher cost. The Global South cannot be asked to ‘resilience its way’ out of a crisis created by others while sinking deeper into debt.

If climate justice means anything, it must start by freeing the Global South from paying twice, once for emissions it didn’t cause, and again to survive them.

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Jawad Khalid is a climate finance specialist based in Islamabad. He works on green innovation, low-carbon investment, and climate resilience in South Asia. He writes frequently on climate justice and adaptation policy for regional and international outlets.