Editing IPCC:AR6/SYR/SPM (section)

=== Current Progress in Adaptation and Gaps and Challenges ===

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'''A.3 Adaptation planning and implementation has progressed across all sectors and regions, with documented benefits and varying effectiveness. Despite progress, adaptation gaps exist, and will continue to grow at current rates of implementation. Hard and soft limits to adaptation have been reached in some ecosystems and regions. Maladaptation is happening in some sectors and regions. Current global financial flows for adaptation are insufficient for, and constrain implementation of, adaptation options, especially in developing countries '''''(high confidence)''''' . Links to longer report 2.2, 2.3'''
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A.3.1 Progress in adaptation planning and implementation has been observed across all sectors and regions, generating multiple benefits ''(very high confidence).'' Growing public and political awareness of climate impacts and risks has resulted in at least 170 countries and many cities including adaptation in their climate policies and planning processes ''(high confidence)'' . Links to longer report 2.2.3

A.3.2 Effectiveness [[#footnote-042|15]] of adaptation in reducing climate risks [[#footnote-041|16]] is documented for specific contexts, sectors and regions ''(high confidence).'' Examples of effective adaptation options include: cultivar improvements, on-farm water management and storage, soil moisture conservation, irrigation, agroforestry, community-based adaptation, farm and landscape level diversification in agriculture, sustainable land management approaches, use of agroecological principles and practices and other approaches that work with natural processes ''(high confidence)'' . Ecosystem-based adaptation [[#footnote-040|17]] approaches such as urban greening, restoration of wetlands and upstream forest ecosystems have been effective in reducing flood risks and urban heat ''(high confidence)'' . Combinations of non-structural measures like early warning systems and structural measures like levees have reduced loss of lives in case of inland flooding ''(medium confidence)'' . Adaptation options such as disaster risk management, early warning systems, climate services and social safety nets have broad applicability across multiple sectors ''(high confidence).'' Links to longer report 2.2.3

A.3.3 Most observed adaptation responses are fragmented, incremental [[#footnote-039|18]] , sector-specific and unequally distributed across regions. Despite progress, adaptation gaps exist across sectors and regions, and will continue to grow under current levels of implementation, with the largest adaptation gaps among lower income groups. ''(high confidence)'' . Links to longer report 2.3.2

A.3.4 There is increased evidence of maladaptation in various sectors and regions ''(high confidence)'' . Maladaptation especially affects marginalised and vulnerable groups adversely ''(high confidence)'' . Links to longer report 2.3.2

A.3.5 Soft limits to adaptation are currently being experienced by small-scale farmers and households along some low-lying coastal areas ''(medium confidence)'' resulting from financial, governance, institutional and policy constraints ''(high confidence)'' . Some tropical, coastal, polar and mountain ecosystems have reached hard adaptation limits ''(high confidence).'' Adaptation does not prevent all losses and damages, even with effective adaptation and before reaching soft and hard limits ''(high confidence)'' . Links to longer report 2.3.2

A.3.6 Key barriers to adaptation are limited resources, lack of private sector and citizen engagement, insufficient mobilization of finance (including for research), low climate literacy, lack of political commitment, limited research and/or slow and low uptake of adaptation science, and low sense of urgency. There are widening disparities between the estimated costs of adaptation and the finance allocated to adaptation ''(high confidence)'' . Adaptation finance has come predominantly from public sources, and a small proportion of global tracked climate finance was targeted to adaptation and an overwhelming majority to mitigation ''(very high confidence)'' . Although global tracked climate finance has shown an upward trend since AR5, current global financial flows for adaptation, including from public and private finance sources, are insufficient and constrain implementation of adaptation options, especially in developing countries ''(high confidence)'' . Adverse climate impacts can reduce the availability of financial resources by incurring losses and damages and through impeding national economic growth, thereby further increasing financial constraints for adaptation, particularly for developing and least developed countries ''(medium confidence).'' Links to longer report 2.3.2, 2.3.3

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'''Box SPM.1 The use of scenarios and modelled pathways in the AR6 Synthesis Report'''

Modelled scenarios and pathways [[#footnote-038|19]] are used to explore future emissions, climate change, related impacts and risks, and possible mitigation and adaptation strategies and are based on a range of assumptions, including socio-economic variables and mitigation options. These are quantitative projections and are neither predictions nor forecasts. Global modelled emission pathways, including those based on cost effective approaches contain regionally differentiated assumptions and outcomes, and have to be assessed with the careful recognition of these assumptions. Most do not make explicit assumptions about global equity, environmental justice or intra-regional income distribution. IPCC is neutral with regard to the assumptions underlying the scenarios in the literature assessed in this report, which do not cover all possible futures. [[#footnote-037|20]] Links to longer report Cross-Section Box.2

WGI assessed the climate response to five illustrative scenarios based on Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) [[#footnote-036|21]] that cover the range of possible future development of anthropogenic drivers of climate change found in the literature. High and very high GHG emissions scenarios (SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 [[#footnote-035|22]] ) have CO '''2''' emissions that roughly double from current levels by 2100 and 2050, respectively. The intermediate GHG emissions scenario (SSP2-4.5) has CO '''2''' emissions remaining around current levels until the middle of the century. The very low and low GHG emissions scenarios (SSP1-1.9 and SSP1-2.6) have CO '''2''' emissions declining to net zero around 2050 and 2070, respectively, followed by varying levels of net negative CO '''2''' emissions. In addition, Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) [[#footnote-034|23]] were used by WGI and WGII to assess regional climate changes, impacts and risks. In WGIII, a large number of global modelled emissions pathways were assessed, of which 1202 pathways were categorised based on their assessed global warming over the 21st century; categories range from pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C with more than 50% likelihood (noted &gt;50% in this report) with no or limited overshoot (C1) to pathways that exceed 4°C (C8). Links to longer report Cross-Section Box.2 (Box SPM.1, Table 1)

Global warming levels (GWLs) relative to 1850-1900 are used to integrate the assessment of climate change and related impacts and risks since patterns of changes for many variables at a given GWL are common to all scenarios considered and independent of timing when that level is reached. Links to longer report Cross-Section Box.2

'''Box SPM.1, Table 1:''' Description and relationship of scenarios and modelled pathways considered across AR6 Working Group reports. Links to longer report Cross-Section Box.2, Figure 1

[[File:31f60039cc2180cbcd65493b8a746162 IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM_Box_Table_1.png]]
\* See footnote 27 for the SSPx-y terminology.

\** See footnote 28 for the RCPy terminology.

\*** Limited overshoot refers to exceeding 1.5°C global warming by up to about 0.1°C, high overshoot by 0.1°C-0.3°C, in both cases for up to several decades.

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