UN Climate Meetings: Notes from SB62: How Disaster Data Could Shape Climate Adaptation Measurement

Observations from the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies Meeting, Bonn, Germany, June 2025

UN June Climate Meetings (SB62) on 27 June 2025, in Bonn, Germany

As someone focusing on the intersection of gender and disasters, I found myself observing an unexpectedly relevant debate at the UNFCCC SB62 meetings in Bonn: How should the world measure progress on climate adaptation? This seemingly technical question was central to the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) meetings, as countries, technical experts, and civil society organizations worked to develop indicators that will likely guide global adaptation policy for decades to come. What I observed were not just technical debates about indicators, but deeper questions about how global frameworks, notably the Sendai Framework and the GGA, should relate to each other and whether measurement approaches from one framework can serve other policy goals.

The negotiations I observed were part of the UAE-Belém work programme, tasked with developing indicators to measure progress toward the GGA established in the Paris Agreement. After nearly a decade of struggling to define what successful adaptation looks like globally, countries finally agreed on a framework at COP28 in Dubai, including targets covering water, food, agriculture, ecosystems, poverty, livelihoods, and health. The current challenge is turning those targets into indicators. At SB62, experts presented a list narrowed down from nearly 10,000 potential indicators to just shy of 500, with the goal of ultimately reaching a maximum of 100 indicators to measure global progress on adaptation. 

What struck me most was how often disaster-related indicators appeared in the expert recommendations, and how contentious they became. Early warning systems, loss and damage indicators, disaster risk metrics, and other hazard information were all proposed as ways to measure adaptation progress. This makes sense: if adaptation is working, shouldn't we see reduced disaster losses and improved resilience? But the negotiations revealed deep disagreements about whether disaster data actually demonstrates adaptation success. Some countries questioned whether measuring disaster impacts shows adaptation progress or simply tracks disaster impacts. Others worried that including disaster metrics would blur the lines between adaptation measurement and other global frameworks. 

This tension reflects a broader challenge about the role of global frameworks and the balance between pragmatic implementation and ambitious goal-setting. Countries were divided across a spectrum of approaches: some welcomed using existing indicators collected under the Sendai framework (and other global frameworks) to reduce reporting burdens, others advocated for modifying these existing metrics to be adaptation relevant, while still others argued that regardless of whether current indicators are appropriate, the stakes are too high to settle for inherited frameworks. This latter group contended that since these indicators will shape global adaptation activities for decades to come, relying on metrics designed for other purposes is not only an inappropriate approach but also a missed opportunity to develop robust, new data infrastructures specifically designed for adaptation. Generally, this latter group also explicitly called for support from developed nations to support developing nations in building these robust infrastructures. 

The debate extended to fundamental questions about measurability itself. Some participants embraced including indicators that we don't yet know how to measure, for example defining and measuring climate resilient agricultural practices, or how much money was saved from preventative adaptation of cultural heritage sites. They argued that setting ambitious targets would drive innovation to meet those goals. Others worried that including unmeasurable metrics would fundamentally undermine the entire effort to track adaptation progress, creating indicators that sound impressive but provide no actionable information for decision-makers. 

Perhaps most concerning from a Gender and Disaster Network perspective was the limited attention paid to what negotiators called "cross-cutting issues", generally discussed as the ability to disaggregate adaptation indicators by gender, age, disability, Indigeneity, and to a lesser extent, race. Of the nearly 500 indicators presented by experts, roughly a quarter could currently be disaggregated by at least one cross-cutting characteristic.

However, this dimension received minimal discussion during negotiations. The majority of parties remained silent on whether cross-cutting considerations should be included in the indicators. A few delegations explicitly supported disaggregation as critical for measuring adaptation progress, while one party actively argued against it, contending that disaggregating data by these characteristics would create additional reporting burdens for countries and that such information was already captured in other frameworks. This relative silence on cross-cutting issues stood in stark contrast to the heated debates over other aspects of indicator design, suggesting that inclusive measurement approaches were not seen as a priority by most negotiating parties.

I was only able to observe the first week of negotiations, but the latest decision text requests technical experts to refine the current list of nearly 500 indicators to no more than 100 globally applicable indicators, including those related to cross-cutting considerations like gender, disability, and Indigeneity. The process will continue with expert meetings over the coming months, culminating in a final technical report and indicator list to be published ahead of COP 30 in November. While the decision text does call for cross-cutting indicators and gender-responsive approaches, it remains unclear how prominently these will feature in the final list. For those of us working on gender and disasters, the stakes are high: the indicators ultimately adopted will guide funding flows and adaptation priorities for years to come. If they fail to capture differential vulnerabilities and capacities, adaptation efforts risk overlooking the very communities most at risk, many of whom are already central to disaster risk reduction work.

GDN member, Shelley Hoover is a PhD student at Princeton University's Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment. She attended SB62 as an observer, and the views expressed here are her own. Special thanks to the Women and Gender Constituency for helping navigate the decidedly non-beginner-friendly UNFCCC world and creating a welcoming community bringing together those advocating for underrepresented voices.