As coastal communities around the world are already facing the sobering consequences of sea level rise, government negotiators at the just-completed United Nations climate summit, known as COP30, debated a critical question: how do we measure “successful” climate adaptation?
There is no easy answer, as negotiations on how to measure progress toward a global goal on how to help communities adapt showed. But having indicators to measure adaptation matters because what is measured gets funded and prioritized by government policies and international donors.
At COP30, negotiators adopted a set of tools to measure adaptation progress, known as the Belém Adaptation Indicators, which contain problematic provisions. What countries finally adopted would, in part, measure success as the proportion of communities and number of people moved away from climate change impacts.
But evidence shows that relocating more communities is not necessarily a desired outcome. Human Rights Watch has documented how difficult planned relocation can be, even when communities request it, and how essential it is for human rights to be respected at all stages of the process. Planned relocation should be seen as a measure of last resort, only after all efforts to adapt in place are exhausted.
Moreover, if community views are not centered, new sites often offer a worse standard of living than places of origin, with challenges for relocated people’s livelihoods, access to basic services, and even ongoing exposure to new hazards (flooding in Senegal, landslides in Panama, ongoing sea level rise in Solomon Islands). Adaptation “success” should measure relocated people’s quality of life and whether their rights are protected after the planned relocation, not whether they move.
Adaptation “success” depends not on the number of relocations but on the quality of governance and support for relocating communities. An earlier draft of the indicators would have instead measured the number of protocols on planned relocation developed to ensure that communities are properly supported and moves are “safe, voluntary and dignified.” Measuring adaptation success as policy development aligns with the goal of a coalition of relocating community leaders and their allies, launched by Human Rights Watch in June 2025. Ultimately, adaptation progress and protection of human rights must go hand in hand.
