Let’s AdMit: Implementation Matters (CARE Bangladesh Pre-COP31 Briefing Note)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A decade after the Paris Agreement, the central climate challenge is no longer the absence of commitments, plans or frameworks; it is the failure to translate them into implementation at the scale, speed and quality required. COP31 Türkiye Antalya must therefore make delivery the measure of climate leadership: moving National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) to financed programmes, from global targets to measurable local results, and from consultation to meaningful decision-making power for climate-vulnerable people. CARE Bangladesh’s ‘Let’s AdMit: Implementation Matters‘ framing calls for adaptation and mitigation to advance coherently ensuring co-benefits to complement each other, while retaining their distinct purposes, finance obligations and accountability systems. Implementation must become the organizing principle of COP31. The Global Implementation Accelerator, the Belém Mission to 1.5 and the proposed Climate Implementation Bridge should help countries convert NDCs and NAPs into investment-ready, country-owned and locally grounded programmes. Their success should be judged by stronger institutions and project pipelines, accessible technology and finance, transparent delivery, and verified improvements in emissions reduction, and resilience of ecosystems and livelihoods.
Bangladesh shows both the urgency and the possibility of implementation. Its NDC 3.0, National Adaptation Plan 2023–2050, Delta Plan 2100 and National Framework and Action Plan for Locally Led Adaptation provide an increasingly coherent policy foundation. Yet climate impacts, ecosystem degradation and recurrent losses continue to outpace available finance and institutional capacity. Effective delivery requires stronger coordination across ministries and local government, integration of climate priorities into public planning and budgets, implementation-ready pipelines, and predictable international support. Communities must be at the center of implementation. Locally led adaptation should give local governments, civil society, women-led organizations and community institutions meaningful authority across risk assessment, priority-setting, budgeting, delivery and monitoring. Multi-year flexible finance, Enhanced Direct Access, proportionate fiduciary requirements, climate information, inclusive leadership and downward accountability are essential so that local actors are not merely consulted or assigned implementation tasks without power and resources.
CARE-led project, FCDO-funded NABAPALLAB demonstrates how the AdMit approach can work in practice. Across the Sundarbans and Hakaluki Haor Ecologically Critical Areas (ECAs), community-led ecosystem restoration is combined with nature-positive livelihoods, decentralized renewable energy, resilient infrastructure, WaSH and climate information services. Integrating Local Adaptation Plans into local government Annual Development Plans offers a pathway for sustaining and scaling these solutions beyond individual project cycles.
Finance remains the decisive constraint. Developing countries need climate finance, as expressed in NDCs and NAPs, of roughly USD 365 billion per year between 2023-2035, while access remains hindered by complex procedures, weak preparation support, unsuitable instruments, and inconsistent accounting. COP31 should advance a credible pathway to the USD 300 billion annual climate finance goal and the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap towards USD 1.3 trillion, while scaling adaptation finance to at least USD 120 billion annually by 2035. For vulnerable and debt-constrained countries, adaptation, Loss and Damage and locally led action require new and additional public finance, primarily grants and highly concessional resources, with transparent reporting of pledges, approvals, commitments, disbursements and grant-equivalent value.
CARE Bangladesh calls on COP31 to deliver four connected outcomes: finance implementation of adaptation plans actions; ambitious mitigation and a just transition consistent with 1.5°C; integrated, risk-informed AdMit solutions that protect ecosystems and avoid maladaptation or carbon lock-in; and an adequately replenished, accessible Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. Across all four, success must be measured by resources reaching frontline actors, emissions reduced, losses avoided or addressed, ecosystems protected, and livelihoods improved and, ultimately, resilience and agency strengthened.
Let’s AdMit: Implementation Matters
CARE Bangladesh Pre-COP31 Briefing Note