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Around the world, local adaptation models are redesigning how communities respond to a harsher climate, such as coastal cities turning to mangrove restoration and resilient agriculture.
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Nature-based solutions
In the Philippines and Indonesia - among the most disaster-prone countries in the world - mangroves that serve as coastal protection and carbon storage are helping protect communities from deadly waves and storm surges.
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In the Philippines, after decades of mangrove loss, local leaders are creating 100-metre-wide "coastal greenbelts," or strips of mangroves, beach forest and wetland vegetation as natural coastal buffer zones.
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In Indonesia, islanders, particularly women, are leading mangrove planting efforts in response to rising seas and worsening tidal floods.
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Climate-proofing schools
Global warming is taking a toll on children's learning around the world.
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In Burkina Faso, Kenya and India, architects are using passive-cooling designs such as clay or earthenware walls, cross-ventilation and elevated roofs to keep classrooms cooler, tapping into local materials and renewable energy like solar power.
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Ecotourism and community-based efforts
In regions where deforestation, illegal logging and habitat destruction are rampant, residents have found community-based solutions to conserve forest and coastal resources.
In a national park in Indonesia's West Java, a women-led initiative of ecoprinting, which is transferring natural pigments of local rainforest plants onto fabric, provides income to communities without relying on destructive practices such as logging and deforestation.
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Ecotourism, which promotes responsible travel in nature-rich areas, also aims to conserve the environment and support the livelihoods of local communities.
Since 2014, the local government of Del Carmen in Siargao, Philippines, has retrained illegal fishers and mangrove cutters to become ecotourism operators and plant mangroves.
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Climate insurance and labour adaptation
Insurance is considered an underused tool in building climate resilience among low-income or informal workers, and labour adaptation can help workers facing climate risks.
Nicaragua introduced so-called climate-risk microinsurance in 2021 to support farmers and small-business owners exposed to extreme weather.
Guatemala's government initiated a similar programme, called Catastrophic Parametric Insurance, to protect the livelihoods of family farmers against severe climate risks.
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Boosting food security
Extreme weather events like typhoons, floods and droughts destroy farmlands and fisheries, significantly disrupting food systems.
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Climate-smart technology is a tool for African farmers who are vulnerable to such extreme events.
Tech solutions such as solar-powered irrigation and using AI to detect pests are helping strengthen food security amid climate change and rapid population growth.
Countries like Ethiopia are expanding use of heat-tolerant wheat crops to boost domestic production and reduce dependence on imports, while others use regenerative farming, a sustainable method that rehabilitates degraded land, to improve soil health and capture carbon.