Principles for the Methodologies, Metrics & Indicators for Assessing climate change, especially on adaptation: Inputs to IPCC WGII
February 2026
Introduction
Ten years after the Paris Agreement was signed, in 2025, global human-induced CO2 and GHG emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, were the highest ever. The world’s trajectory is on track to significantly miss the 1.5°C and 2°C temperature targets enshrined in the agreement. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are estimated to the highest in 14 million years. The consequences of this, already being experienced through erratic and extreme weather and climate anomalies, are expected to multiply and carry enormous costs and cause human suffering, especially among vulnerable communities, as well as large shifts in biodiversity. Impacts caused by heating, such as sea level rises or forest fires, are growing exponentially alongside the linear growth in GHG emissions. As emission reductions through mitigation action fail to halt climate change and avert its disastrous consequences, the need to adapt has intensified in urgency and scale.
The profound injustice of the unfolding climate crisis are not only the absolute costs on humanity and nature but the inherently inequitable way in which these will be distributed- those that have contributed (and benefitted) the least from the emissions of greenhouse gases which are at the root of the crisis bear the brunt of climate change and the burden of addressing it.
Adaptation interventions must be designed and implemented not only to improve adaptive capacity and resilience of societies. They must also address the inherent injustices and inequitable distribution of the costs and burden of action relative to the capabilities of communities around the world. A significant step towards devising a global path for adaptation was made at COP28 in Dubai with the agreement on the UAE Framework for Resilience that encapsulates and streamlines adaptation action across seven thematic areas covering water, food, ecosystems and biodiversity, health, infrastructure, poverty and livelihoods, and cultural heritage. The Framework also elaborates on four distinct dimensions of the adaptation cycle covering planning and implementation- climate risk and vulnerability assessments, planning, implementation and monitoring, and evaluation and learning.
While the IPCC AR6 has made important progress in developing equity-centred approaches to assessing climate impacts and adaptation options through multidimensional analysis, significant gaps still exist in the effort to comprehensively evaluate the suitability and relevance of adaptation policies and implementation pathways. Policy-relevant metrics for assessment need people-centric principles, assessments and frameworks that adequately and comprehensively capture developmental and environmental needs, suitability, and requirements of adequate, equitable, and accessible means of implementation.
Metrics, methods and indicators to successfully capture these aspects require explicit and elaborate application of principles and frameworks that place equity and justice at the centre.