The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) is a collective commitment established under Article 7.1 of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Its primary objective is to elevate adaptation—the process of adjusting to actual and/or expected climate change and its effects—to the same level of political priority and urgency as mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions).

While the concept was introduced in 2015, the actual framework to implement it—the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience—was adopted at CoP28 in 2023. At CoP30 in late 2025, countries agreed on the Belém Adaptation Indicators, a set of 59 metrics designed to track global progress in reducing vulnerability, strengthening resilience, and enhancing adaptive capacity.

While the intention behind the GGA is deeply humanitarian and protective, human rights advocates, Indigenous groups, and climate justice organizations have raised serious concerns. They caution that, if adaptation frameworks are implemented without strict human rights safeguards, they can inadvertently become tools that justify the dispossession and forced eviction of vulnerable populations.

Why the GGA Could Trigger Dispossession and Evictions

The risks do not stem from the wording of the treaty itself, but from how governments and private entities translate the goal into real-world projects. There are three primary ways “adaptation” can become a pretext for displacing vulnerable communities:

1. “Green Grabbing” and Eco-Protection Zones

One of the core themes of the GGA is ecosystem protection and utilizing Nature-based Solutions (NbS)—such as planting mangroves to prevent coastal erosion or restoring wetlands to mitigate flooding.

The Risk: Governments may create protected areas or strict conservation zones to meet their international adaptation targets. In doing so, they frequently evict Indigenous peoples or traditional communities who have lived on and managed those lands for generations, labeling their presence as an environmental threat or a hindrance to “restoration.”

2. Infrastructure-Driven Forced Displacements (“Maladaptation”)

To meet GGA targets regarding climate-resilient infrastructure and protecting cities from severe weather, governments must build large-scale projects like seawalls, massive dams, flood bypass channels, and large-scale irrigation networks.

The Risk: These projects require significant land. Vulnerable urban populations—particularly those living in informal settlements or slums along riverbanks or coastlines—are routinely evicted under the guise of “public safety” and “climate risk reduction.” Often, these communities are relocated to areas with fewer economic opportunities, poorer infrastructure, and worse socio-economic conditions, an outcome known as maladaptation.

3. “Climate Gentrification” and Managed Retreat

As climate change accelerates, governments use adaptation mapping to identify high-risk zones (such as floodplains or rapidly eroding coastlines) and low-risk zones.

The Risk: Once safer areas are officially identified, wealthy developers and governments often invest heavily in adapting those specific zones, driving up land values. This prices out lower-income residents, a process known as climate gentrification. Conversely, in high-risk zones, governments may enforce “managed retreat” policies. While designed to keep people safe, these policies can be weaponized to clear out marginalized groups without providing fair compensation, legal recourse, or culturally appropriate resettlement options.

The Core Problem: Top-Down Implementation vs. Human Rights

The foundational issue is that international climate policy is typically structured from the top down. When national governments are pressured to show measurable progress against global indicators, they may prioritize rapid, large-scale engineering or conservation metrics over local community rights.

If a state lacks strong legal protections for land tenure—particularly for informal settlers, smallholder farmers, and Indigenous peoples who may not possess formal, state-issued land deeds—adaptation projects can easily override local sovereignty.

The Climate Justice Consensus: For the Global Goal on Adaptation to succeed without causing human suffering, it must be bound to human rights frameworks. Adaptation strategies must be locally led, respect traditional and Indigenous land rights, and feature robust, legally binding safeguards against forced displacement.