The second Global Stocktake of the Paris Agreement (GST2) will be a key opportunity to assess collective progress on adaptation. But how prepared is the region to provide evidence of this progress?
Based on this question, María Luz Falivene Fernández, María del Pilar Bueno Rubial and Joel Hernán González, members of Fundación Argentina 1.5, participated in the preparation of the article “Strengthening the adaptation assessment for GST2: insights from Latin America and the Caribbean”, published by the Adaptation Research Alliance (ARA).
The article summarizes the main results of a regional gap identification process that brought together climate negotiators, adaptation specialists, civil society organizations and members of the research community in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The discussion highlighted some of the main challenges facing the region in strengthening adaptation assessment: insufficient funding, limitations in data and technical capacities, difficulties in coordination between levels of government, and the need to improve monitoring and evaluation systems.
But a deeper question also arises: how can the realities of adaptation occurring in different territories be recognized and adequately translated into a global assessment?
The experience of the first Global Stocktake revealed significant methodological, conceptual, and procedural difficulties in answering this question. Looking ahead to GST2, the challenge will be to move towards a more balanced and inclusive assessment capable of reflecting the diverse scales at which adaptation is constructed.
From Latin America and the Caribbean, this implies not only generating more information, but also strengthening the region's capacity to produce, systematize and bring its own evidence to international decision-making spaces.
In this process, regional participation matters. And it also matters that the voices, experiences, and lessons learned from those working on adaptation in Latin America and the Caribbean contribute to defining how global progress will be measured.
The GST2 is still under development. The region also has the opportunity to help define what adaptation progress means, how it is measured, and what evidence should be considered.
