What’s Next for the UAE-Belém Work Program on Indicators for the UAE Framework for Global Climate ​​Resilience?

By Pan Ei Ei Phyoe and Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio

The UN Climate Change Conference, COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan concluded with a significant, though complex, outcome for global climate resilience. While adaptation finance remained a contentious issue — with no dedicated adaptation sub-goal included in the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) and the Adaptation Fund falling far short of its fund mobilization target — progress was made on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and in particular, the work program that is underway to develop indicators for the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience, the UAE–Belém Work Program on Indicators. A key achievement was guidance from parties to include indicators on “Means of Implementation” (MOI) in the indicator set that is being developed alongside broader enabling environment indicators. MOI is a basket term for finance, technology transfer, and capacity building. The inclusion of MOI indicators strengthens the framework by enabling better tracking of support and other enabling conditions required for adaptation progress. The decision also formalized the Baku High-Level Dialogue on Adaptation, ensuring that adaptation finance and implementation remain high on the agenda at future COPs.

The UAE–Belém Work Program is now tasked with developing a manageable, globally applicable set of no more than 100 indicators to assess progress toward the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience’s targets. Since late 2024, technical experts have been tasked with identifying and developing forward-looking, fit-for-purpose indicators assigned to each target in the UAE framework. The COP 29 decision guides them to further refine indicators, address gaps, and ensure a common approach. Three key workshops are scheduled in 2025, culminating in a hybrid workshop before COP 30 in Brazil to reflect on the final list of potential indicators to be adopted in Brazil.

Five Challenges Facing the UAE–Belém Work Program

However, significant challenges remain. Specifically, the UAE–Belém Work Program faces five key challenges in its effort to develop a robust and globally applicable adaptation indicator framework. These include achieving a standardized and harmonized approach, integrating climate resilience into broader development metrics, incorporating MOI and enabling environment indicators, ensuring cross-cutting issues and disaggregated data are represented, and managing tight timelines and constraints on expert capacity.

Achieving a standardized and harmonized approach to indicators is difficult due to the lack of agreed definitions for some of the targets, which complicates the selection of appropriate indicators to measure progress. For instance, the food and agriculture related target calls for ‘climate-resilient food and agricultural production and supply and distribution of food’, however a definition of what precisely constitutes this has not yet been agreed. Additionally, many of the indicators proposed, such as those borrowed from other frameworks, like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), are not always adaptation-specific, and as such may not fully capture if we are making progress in climate resilience aspects of sustainable development. This suggests that some new indicators may be needed, but integrating climate resilience into broader development metrics requires methodology development, bridging gaps in data availability and ensuring that indicators are both practical and outcome oriented. Moreover, there is a critical gap in scenario-based indicators that align with forward-looking climate risk assessments, systemic vulnerabilities and the interconnected nature of climate impacts (e.g. tipping points, cascading and transboundary risks) as well as the absence of indicators for detecting maladaptation, which could help prevent unintended negative consequences of adaptation measures. Inconsistencies in the expert review process have further complicated standardization efforts, highlighting the need for clearer guidance and alignment across thematic groups, to improve consistency and agreement on indicators. Without clear and robust indicators and tracking mechanisms, adaptation progress risks being assessed through vague policy statements rather than actionable, outcome-driven metrics.

Beyond technical challenges, the program also struggles with the incorporation of MOI and enabling environment indicators, as there are currently no commonly agreed metrics to track adaptation-specific finance, technology transfer, or capacity-building — despite these factors being essential for effective adaptation action. Without MOI indicators, it will be difficult to measure whether countries are receiving the necessary financial and technical support to implement adaptation measures. Additionally, the framework has yet to adequately address cross-cutting issues and disaggregation of data, with indicators failing to capture socio-economic disparities, ethnicity and gender differences, and the unique vulnerabilities of migrant populations, highly vulnerable groups, and Indigenous communities, amongst others. These gaps make it difficult to assess whether adaptation efforts are equitably benefiting those most at risk. Finally, the tight timeline leading up to COP 30 in November 2025, along with a 100-indicator limit and reliance on voluntary experts, adds further pressure to an already ambitious process. Given the scale and complexity of the task, ensuring adequate support, the process for alignment, and coordination among different technical expert groups will be critical for the successful refinement of the indicators.

The UAE–Belém Work Program Presents a Profound Opportunity

Despite these challenges, the UAE–Belém Work Program presents an unprecedented opportunity to develop a forward-looking, scientifically robust indicator framework that strengthens climate adaptation action. One key opportunity lies in the use of proxy indicators and correlations, which can provide valuable insights even when direct measurement is difficult. For example, the Waffle House Index — an informal disaster severity metric used in the United States — gauges local infrastructure resilience and recovery by monitoring on the operational status of restaurant chains’ locations post-disaster (e.g. closed, limited menu, or fully operational). Similarly, early warning systems, such as initiatives like the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) program, can leverage proxy indicators such as mobile network usage trends to infer population resettlement, linking supply chain recovery timelines to economic activity proxies like mobile money transactions or the speed of critical infrastructure restoration (e.g. schools, health facilities) in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to quantify adaptation progress.

The integration of big data, remote sensing, citizen science, and Indigenous knowledge represents another major opportunity for refining adaptation indicators. Satellite imagery and earth data analytics from Planet Labs provide near-time monitoring of climate impacts such as drought-driven land degradation in the Sahel. Platforms such as the Resilience Atlas can track climate impacts on land use, water resources, and biodiversity, offering near-time monitoring capabilities. Meanwhile, organizations like UN Global Pulse are pioneering the use of big data analytics to track climate risks and human resilience trends. They analyze unconventional data streams — such as social media trends, mobile app usage, or satellite-derived migration patterns — to predict climate-induced displacement or food insecurity. The UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) work on health adaptation also highlights the potential for integrating climate data with public health records to track climate-related morbidity and disease burdens, providing a clearer picture of climate vulnerability. Citizen science initiatives further enrich these frameworks: platforms like Zooniverse engage communities in reporting localized flood impacts, while Indigenous knowledge systems — rooted in millennia of place-based observations, cultural practices, and intergeneric stewardship — represents a transformative yet underutilized opportunity to refine climate adaptation indicators. The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP), the South Island Landless Natives Act (SILNA), and the International Savanna Fire Management Initiative (ISFMI) exemplify how Indigenous knowledge systems — through traditional land management, fire control strategies, and climate forecasting — ​​can be integrated into adaptation indicators to enhance resilience tracking and inform climate strategies. These tools can complement traditional indicator frameworks by filling in data gaps where other forms of data are unavailable.

Another major opportunity is mainstreaming climate resilience within the next generation of global development frameworks, particularly as discussions begin around the post-2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UAE–Belém indicators could serve as a foundation for embedding resilience metrics into future SDG successor frameworks, ensuring that climate adaptation becomes a central pillar of global development.

The development of a robust indicator framework under the UAE–Belém Work Program is a pivotal opportunity for international communities to drive real action on climate adaptation, mainstream resilience across sectors, and enhance global accountability. These indicators matter because what gets measured shapes policy priorities and investment decisions. Having a strong set of indicators to track progress, will provide the evidence-based insights needed to identify what is working, what isn’t, and why, enabling countries to refine strategies and avoid maladaptive measures. A well-structured framework can also unlock new financing mechanisms, including resilience bonds and performance-based investments, by giving potential investors the data they need to assess risk, potential impact, and progress. The success of this work program will determine how well the world tracks finances, and scales adaptation efforts. Now is the time to ensure that these indicators not only measure progress but also actively drive the transformative change needed to build a more climate-resilient future.