Look beyond numbers at COP30: The future is adaptation

For years, climate scientists and policymakers have been obsessed with one thing: emissions. Tracking carbon is indeed essential to climate governance. With sophisticated methodologies and modeling, we can quantify a country’s, sector’s, or industry’s carbon performance down to the decimal.

Carbon metrics also dominate headlines. Negotiations hinge on how much countries promise to cut — or how little they actually deliver.
But ten years after the Paris Agreement, meticulous carbon accounting hasn’t stopped us from running headfirst into climate reality: stronger typhoons, harsher droughts, colder winters, and hotter summers are already reshaping — and in some cases erasing — lives.

It’s time to admit that emissions numbers tell only part of the story.

China’s adaptation strategy

At COP30 in Belem, Brazil, China formally introduced a new national adaptation goal. According to a World Resources Institute analysis, China’s latest NDC includes, for the first time, a pledge to “build a climate-adaptive society by 2035.” This isn’t mere rhetoric: China is already piloting 39 climate-adaptive cities and building a three-tier governance system linking national, provincial, and local authorities.

Take Chongqing. Long battered by heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, and floods, the southwestern city is rapidly expanding its climate-monitoring systems to strengthen early warnings for extreme weather. It is restoring forests and wetlands: by 2022, forest coverage had reached 55% — up nearly 10 percentage points since 2015. The city is also upgrading water infrastructure, building out “sponge-city” systems, and integrating adaptation into urban planning, agriculture, energy, and transportation.

Or consider Jinhua in the eastern province of Zhejiang. To support safe, climate-aware tourism on JinhuaMountain, the local meteorological bureau built a dense automatic observation network tailored to the mountain’s microclimate. It now produces specialized indices for camping, cooling, cloud cover, and climbing conditions, showing how localized data services can support tourism, recreation, and risk management.

Adaptation, at its core, is about smart, local systems that keep people safe and economies functioning.

South–South cooperation: China’s adaptation know-how goes global

At COP29, China reported mobilizing 1.77 trillion yuan(about USD 250 billion) in climate-relevant funding through the Belt and Road Initiative since 2016, supporting mitigation and adaptation projects in more than 40 developing countries.

This year, China has deepened cooperation through South-South cooperation on green infrastructure, low-carbon transport, and ecological restoration through both public financing and private investment.

In November, Qingdao Agricultural University and Uruguay’s National Institute of Agricultural Researchsigned a MoU to expand grassland-agriculture research and establish a joint Belt-and-Road grassland lab. The lab aims to build low-carbon grazing systems adapted to Uruguay’s natural pasture industry.

In early October, BYD’s 14-millionth new-energy vehicle rolled off the line in Camaçari, Brazil — a milestone in the region’s EV industrialization. In March, Quito added 60 Chinese-made Yutong trolleybuses to its public transport fleet.

Since 2023, Chinese and Brazilian universities and companies have jointly launched the China–Brazil Amazon Degraded Soil Restoration and Rainforest Protection program. The project focuses on restoring farmland degraded by extensive cultivation and developing sustainable agricultural models for rainforest regions.

China is also pushing frontier solutions. Envision Energy’s green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia — capable of producing 320,000 tonnesof green ammonia annually — signals China’s transition from pilot projects to large-scale commercial deployment.

Labs in Guangdong Province are experimenting on agiant floating wind turbines that are not only able to withstand typhoons but also harness their power. Or, on the other side of the country, in Inner Mongolia, engineers set fly a power-generating kite, that is capable of harnessing high-altitude winds.

Why adaptation-first matters

These real-world projects deliver what emissions targets can’t: resilience, human security, and immediate climate protection. Early-warning systems, for example, may not be glamorous, but when extreme rainfall hits, they save lives. Solar-plus-storage systems keep communities powered during grid failures, heat waves, and energy shocks.

Meanwhile, emissions pledges often falter. Developed countries continue to promise climate finance yet routinely fall short — or delay delivery. Political shifts frequently erode ambition. With some major powers now retreating from climate commitments, relying on future pledges is increasingly risky.

The reality check: Don’t wait for others

The Global South cannot afford to depend on uncertain financing or waning political will from developed countries. At COP30, the cracks in global climate leadership are clear.

It’s time for Global South countries to lean on one another — not on empty promises. China’s approach offers lessons: invest in resilient infrastructure, share green technologies, build local capacity, and prioritize practical solutions over distant net-zero headlines.

If global climate governance continues to privilege emissions accounting over resilience, it risks abandoning the people most exposed to climate impacts. The planet doesn’t only need fewer carbon molecules — it needs stronger communities.

At this pivotal COP, the Global South should take a page from China’s playbook: double down on adaptation, scale up local innovation, and intensify South–South cooperation. When climate change hits, what matters most isn’t how much CO2 you didn’t emit, it’s how prepared you were to survive.

By: Fei Fei 

Fei Fei, is the producer and host of Climate Watch under CGTN

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