National Adaptation Plans in the COP 30 Decision: Promises, progress, gaps

Climate impacts have increased in severity, and adapting to these actual and expected impacts is now widely recognized as a critical component of our global response to the climate crisis. However, adaptation responses have typically been characterized by disjointed projects and ad hoc efforts when we need to prioritize better, more systemic adaptation planning instead. 

This is where National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) come in. 

The NAP process enables countries to identify and address their medium- and long-term priorities for adapting to climate change. It involves analyzing current and future climate change and vulnerability to its impacts, identifying and prioritizing adaptation options, implementing these options, and tracking—and learning from—their performance. 

Belém was a big moment for NAPs: after 2 years of negotiation, the outcome of the National Adaptation Plan assessment was finally adopted at COP 30. The decision acknowledges progress in developing countries’ adaptation efforts but notes that persistent gaps and needs—including the adaptation finance gap and the lack of climate information and capacity—continue to hinder the formulation and implementation of NAPs. 

As countries start to follow up on the COP 30 outcomes, we unpack the NAP assessment’s findings on the state of play of countries’ processes for formulating and implementing their NAPs.

The NAP Assessment: What was it again?

When the NAP process was first set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2011, countries decided to periodically take stock of systemic progress and constraints on countries’ NAP processes so they could better understand what was working and what was not.

The NAP assessment helps inform the international community on gaps and needs, enable the iterative and continuous improvement of national adaptation actions, and contribute to shaping future guidance and support programs. Therefore, the outcome of the NAP assessment is closely relevant to regional and international support programs for NAP processes, as well as to national policy-makers and practitioners currently formulating or implementing a NAP, to understand the latest mandates from the UNFCCC process and information on best practices and lessons learned. 

It is important to note that the NAP assessment does not rank countries on their adaptation efforts, nor does it judge individual countries’ NAP documents. It assesses collective progress and systemic gaps and barriers.

Unlike for their nationally determined contributions, countries do not have a fixed time frame for the NAP process. Previous NAP assessments took place in 2015 and 2018, and in both cases, finishing the assessments was challenging because too few countries had submitted their NAP documents. 

The third NAP assessment was scheduled to take place in 2024 against the backdrop of the completion of the first global stocktake and the adoption of the 2030 targets for the global goal on adaptation. But countries failed to reach a decision about NAPs at COP 29, and it was forwarded to COP 30 for further consideration. After 2 weeks of intense negotiations, the outcome of the NAP assessment was adopted as part of the Belém political package at the closing plenary of COP 30.

Planning Progress

The final decision says that developing countries have “made some progress” on their NAP processes since the last assessment in 2018.

At the time the COP 30 decision was adopted, 71 developing countries had submitted their NAP documents to UNFCCC’s NAP Central platform (and as of the end of January 2026, this number has risen to 75). Over half of the least developed countries and 15 of the 39 Small Island Developing States now have a NAP in place. In total, 144 out of 154 developing countries have initiated the NAP process. This is remarkable progress compared to 2018, when only 11 developing countries submitted their NAP documents to the UNFCCC.

Persistent Challenges Remain

The decision also highlights the persistent gaps and challenges developing countries face. 

Chiefly among these is the lack of sufficient, predictable, and accessible finance for both adaptation planning and implementation. The final decision’s conclusions on finance align with the findings published in the UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report 2025, where it estimated that the global adaptation finance gap is somewhere between USD 284 billion and USD 339 billion per year for developing countries. 

In the COP 30 Mutirão decision, countries called for the tripling of adaptation finance by 2035 as a continuation beyond the sunset of the previous doubling goal agreed upon at COP 26 in Glasgow. But even if this goal is fulfilled by 2035, developing countries would still face an adaptation finance gap of around USD 190 billion–245 billion per year.

Countries have requested that the Least Developed Countries Expert Group and the Adaptation Committee compile an overview of climate finance flows and financial support from developed countries for developing countries’ NAP processes. This overview will be included in the 2026 NAP progress report to be published before COP 31. Many developing countries also flagged that the long and complex process for accessing support for their NAP processes from climate funds could easily take up to 3–4 years for disbursement. The decision noted with concern that despite efforts to streamline and simplify access to finance, delayed access “continue[s] to significantly hinder progress in adaptation action and resilience.” 

Access to climate information was also identified as a persistent barrier. The decision noted a gap in “access to adequate data on downscaled and localized climate scenarios for use in impact, vulnerability and risk assessments.” Additionally, developing countries face challenges accessing or applying tools for “collecting and assimilating national data on climate variables and on socioeconomic risks and vulnerabilities.” These factors hinder developing countries’ abilities to design adequate, tailored adaptation responses to address the medium- and long-term needs of communities and ecosystems.

The Process Matters

The NAP assessment also highlighted good practices that countries should follow when formulating and implementing a NAP. 

It reiterates that the NAP process should follow a country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory, and transparent approach. It notes the importance of involving Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the NAP process.

It highlights the need to incorporate Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge, as well as local knowledge systems. It is well established that adaptation efforts will not be effective if they do not address gender and social inequalities that exacerbate vulnerability or if they are not responsive to evolving local realities. Inclusive processes lead to equitable outcomes, and many countries are already integrating gender considerations and Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge into their NAP processes. 

The NAP assessment underscored that mainstreaming adaptation—systematically integrating adaptation considerations into policies, decisions, and budgets at all levels and across sectors—is one of the core objectives of the NAP process as set out in Decision 5/CP.17. 

And it noted that enhancing monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) systems for NAPs help enable a better understanding of whether the country is becoming more resilient, who benefits from adaptation investments, and how effective adaptation actions are. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems are also critical for feeding information into global-level assessments, such as the NAP assessment or the global stocktake, to assess collective progress. It is worth noting that with the adoption of the new Belém Adaptation Indicators at COP 30, more guidance will be needed on how to operationalize these new global adaptation indicators at the national and sub-national levels through the NAP process. 

Lastly, the decision emphasized the benefits of integrating nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation interventions into NAPs, as well as the benefits of exploring synergies between the NAP process and other relevant plans and strategies, such as the national biodiversity strategy and action plan process.

What Next?

The outcome of the NAP assessment paints a familiar picture: there has been increasing ambition in plans and commitments for adaptation action and support, but progress is uneven, fragmented, and incremental—and countries face persistent gaps in finance, climate information, and capacity. 

While the decision does not necessarily solve these structural challenges, it reinforces that NAP processes remain the main vehicle for countries to systematically build resilience, enhance adaptive capacity, and reduce vulnerability to climate change. The COP 30 decisions emphasized once again that developing countries need concessional, predictable, and accessible finance for their NAP processes, as well as capacity support for building resilience to escalating climate risks. 

As the International Court of Justice deliberated in their advisory opinion on climate change, developed countries have an obligation under international law to provide and mobilize support for developing countries. Regional and international support programs should also pay close attention to the gaps and challenges identified in the NAP assessment and support developing countries in their NAP process. As countries start following up on the COP 30 mandates, NAPs need to be brought into the limelight, and political commitments made in the NAP decision need to be matched with timely, sufficient support and stronger national actions.

Despite geopolitical tensions, extreme weather events and the climate and biodiversity crises continue to top the long-term global risk ranking. Investing in the NAP process will help countries build resilient economies, safeguard lives and livelihoods, protect biodiversity and ecosystems, and create a future where communities flourish and no one is left behind. The next NAP assessment will take place in 2030, and countries will start the necessary preparation in 2029.