The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA)
About the Global Center on Adaptation
The world is simply not ready to face the inevitable effects of our climate emergency. Unless we step up and act to adapt now, the results will be poverty, water shortages and soaring levels of migration, with an enormous toll on human life. Trillion-dollar investment is urgently needed to avert a “climate apartheid”, where the rich escape the effects of climate change and the poor do not. The investment required is far smaller than the eventual cost of doing nothing and increasingly vital given the slow pace of mitigation measures.
There is an urgent need for a more systematic approach to adaptation to climate change, to increase and accelerate effective action. The Global Center on Adaptation (GCA) works as a solutions broker to accelerate action and support for adaptation solutions, from the international to the local, in partnership with the public and private sector, to ensure we learn from each other and work together for a climate resilient future.
The GCA is a foundation under Dutch law, working from its headquarters in Rotterdam with a knowledge and research hub based in Groningen. The GCA will establish a worldwide network of regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Through this evolving network of offices and partners, the organization engages in high-level policy activities, new research contributions, communications, and technical assistance to governments and the private sector.
The GCA is the lead partner institution for the Climate Adaptation Summit in Amsterdam, hosted by Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands – the first major gathering of international leaders dedicated entirely to adaptation. The GCA is also the Managing Partner of the Global Commission on Adaptation co-chaired by Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates and Kristalina Georgieva, formed to mobilize knowledge resources and catalyse political support for urgent action to climate adaptation solutions. The GCA is also the Managing Partner to the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Group of Ministers of Finance and to the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of 48 developing countries highly vulnerable to climate change. In the run-up to the Climate Adaptation Summit, the GCA is driving a “Year of Action” on climate adaptation to translate commitments secured by the Global Commission on Adaptation into concrete activities on the ground. The Climate Adaptation Summit itself will adopt a “Global Compact on Adaptation” to carry forward visionary efforts to significantly scale up adaptation over the next 5 to 10 years.