Climate adaptation is no longer about preparing for a distant future. It’s about managing risks in real time — as the searing heat now gripping London and far beyond makes unmistakably clear. Our climate is changing faster than our systems, our infrastructure, and our institutions can handle.

The World Meteorological Organization confirms that the past 11 years have been the hottest on record. Scientists now expect the world to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius in the coming years.

We’re entering a new era of climate risk. Overshoot is not a brief detour. Even if temperatures eventually fall, some of the damage may prove irreversible.

Coral reefs are already in danger, threatening the livelihoods of at least 300 million people who depend on them. The Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are melting at an accelerating pace, locking in sea-level rise that will reshape coastlines, and threaten communities and infrastructure. Rising heat, shifting rainfall and deforestation could push the Amazon toward irreversible change, releasing vast stores of carbon into the atmosphere. We must keep this overshoot as short and small as possible by reducing emissions drastically this decade and accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels.

In an interconnected world, climate vulnerability anywhere becomes an economic and security risk everywhere. Threatening food and water security. Disrupting supply chains. Driving displacement and instability. And increasing fiscal pressures.

Despite the stakes, adaptation has been politically undervalued and chronically underfunded. Our systems for managing risk are inadequate. Insurance premiums are rising. Protection gaps are widening. Infrastructure is increasingly out of date. And the countries facing the greatest climate impacts are those who contributed least to causing them. They face the greatest financial barriers — from higher costs of capital, to the need to divert scarce public resources away from health, education and development to respond to climate shocks.

We need a new approach to adaptation, one that reflects today’s realities.

First — we need to close the finance gap.

Developed countries must triple adaptation finance. Replenish multilateral climate funds like the Green Climate Fund and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. And prioritize grant-based and predictable finance, especially for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries.

Meanwhile, Multilateral Development Banks must use their expanded lending capacity to aggressively scale up investment in resilience. Their shareholders must also give them far greater firepower — accelerating reforms, providing fresh capital, expanding concessional finance, and enabling them to take more risk where it matters most. Every public dollar must unlock many more in private investment — through guarantees, blended finance, local-currency financing and other instruments.

We must open the door to innovative financing sources — including solidarity levies on high-emitting sectors and debt-for-climate swaps. And I call on governments to tax windfall profits from fossil fuel companies to help finance adaptation and climate related losses and damages.

The companies driving climate chaos cannot continue profiting from the destruction while vulnerable countries struggle. Polluters must pay.

Second — we need to recognize that climate risk is economic risk.

Adaptation must shape national development strategies, fiscal policy, public investment, infrastructure planning, trade policy and financial regulation. Finance ministries, central banks, planning ministries and public investment authorities must treat climate risk as core economic policy — and work to mobilize greater domestic resources. This will help countries anchor climate action in their own development priorities — and promote sustainability of climate investments.

Third — global financial systems must recognize the value of resilience.

Countries that invest in reducing risk should be rewarded, not punished. Yet too much of our financial architecture rewards short-term returns while discounting the risk now bearing down on every economy. Resilience must be valued as an asset.

Multilateral Development Banks, financial institutions, insurers, regulators and credit rating agencies must work together to reward investments in resilience through updated financial models, lower borrowing costs, favorable insurance terms and improved access to capital.

And fourth — we need better preparation before disasters strike.

This means fully implementing Early Warnings for All. It means keeping insurance accessible and affordable. And it means making pre-arranged finance the norm, not the exception. We cannot allow climate disasters to become fiscal disasters. Multilateral Development Banks, climate funds, donors, insurers and development partners must join forces to put pre-arranged finance within reach of developing countries.

Adaptation is an economic necessity. A development imperative. A security imperative. And a matter of climate justice. Together, let’s ensure that resilience becomes the foundation for a safer, more secure and more sustainable future. And that resources are made available for that to be possible.

(Excerpts of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the London Climate Action Week - Climate & Development Finance Forum 2026 in London, United Kingdom and Northern Ireland on 24 June 2026.)