How to track progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation?: a stocktaking of Parties’ positions on measurement one year into the GlaSS work programme

In 2021, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change initiated a two-year work programme that, in part, would work to determine how to assess progress in achieving the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). Set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, the GGA aims to "enhancee adaptive capacity, strengthen resilience, and reduce vulnerability to climate change." One possible outcome of the "GlaSS" work programme is the production of a set of global metrics for adaptation. As scholarship on measurement reveals, however, there are many shortcomings to indicator frameworks, and existing sets of global goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, have proven ineffective in producing substantive change. As the inception of institutional architectures is a critical moment in understanding their effects, this study takes stock of the GlaSS at its halfway point. While "developing" and "developed" countries diverge in their preferences for metrics, they converge in their desire for the metrics to be scientifically-grounded and based on existing models and data. These countries' differences reflect the broader politics of accountability and challenges of consensus in climate change governance. Their similarities risk reproducing problematic measurement practices critiqued in the literature. At stake is effective adaptation in the world's most vulnerable communities.