The world will fail to reach a new deal to tackle global warming unless rich countries stick to a promise to help poorer nations adapt to the harmful effects of climate change, says the final report of an international commission backed by the United Nations.

"There can be no global agreement without adaptation assistance, and because of the nature of climate impacts, there will be much less global security without it," warns the Commission on Climate Change and Development, a body launched by the Swedish government in December 2007. The commission's 13 members include Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai and Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden's minister for international development.

The report notes that the commitment to assist the poor is enshrined in the main U.N. convention on climate change. "The world will be a worse place for all if we do not meet this treaty obligation," it says.

Around 190 nations will gather in Copenhagen in December to try to agree a broader global pact to fight climate change, building on the existing Kyoto Protocol. Slow progress in curbing carbon emissions and financing responses to global warming has contributed to a "trust gap" between industrialised and developing countries that has stalled common action, the report says.

The commission calls on donors to mobilise new money for adaptation now, in addition to development aid. But it says they should not set up more funds, because a proliferation of mechanisms is already causing management problems for developing countries.

The head of the U.N. climate change secretariat is pushing for a fairer international framework for controlling climate finance, and Mexico has proposed a world fund into which countries would pay according to their emissions and receive money in line with their needs.

But the commission says agreeing and implementing new mechanisms might delay essential action, and recommends a two-stage approach to raising money to help poor countries deal with more extreme weather and rising seas.

The report does not produce a new estimate of the costs of adapting to climate change, which the U.N. says will run into tens of billions of dollars by 2030. The commission says the price tag is still uncertain and will rise for decades or centuries, but is probably higher than current levels of official development assistance (ODA), which reached a record $119.8 billion in 2008.

In the short term, it urges donors to mobilise $1-2 billion to help vulnerable low-income nations, particularly in Africa, and poorer small island states.

The next stage would be for countries to agree on a flexible financing mechanism with democratic and efficient governance, and ensure that national and local governments and organisations can access the funding they need from different sources at a minimum cost.

The commission says donors should start by funding high-priority projects identified in the National Adaptation Programmes of Action drawn up by around 40 of the poorest countries, which have received little support so far. It also calls for a dramatic expansion of disaster response and preparedness systems, supported by an international financing mechanism triggered automatically by major events.

"This report should highlight to all United Nations member states that significant additional finances for adaptation must start flowing from richer to poorer nations," said Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development, which advised the commission. "At the same time global greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced to limit the ultimate costs of adaptation, which will be measured not in dollars but human lives."

LINKING GLOBAL AND LOCAL

The commission emphasises the importance of putting local communities - and among them the poorest, most vulnerable families - at the centre of adaptation efforts.

"The plan is to give a voice to the poorest of the poor, to see that there is capacity out there, and how to build that," Sweden's Carlsson told AlertNet at a recent event in London.

The report says international organisations and national governments have often found it hard to aid and cooperate with local authorities in cities, towns and villages. It calls for stronger links and partnerships, including the private sector, to allow major initiatives like carbon trading and technology transfer to reach the local level.

The commission also argues for greater recognition of the strategies and capacities already being used by individuals, families and communities to cope with fluctuating weather patterns and rising disasters.

"The struggle to react to climate change as a 'crisis' diminishes opportunities for local people to take ownership of their own climate change agenda and integrate it into their own development strategies," the report notes.

Carlsson argues that fighting poverty and tackling climate change should be addressed together, with the aim of building people's ability to manage risks and shocks. In richer countries, technical measures will be more important in adapting to climate change, but in most states, both approaches will be required.

The role of institutions is crucial because they distribute resources and services and are the channel for people to express their needs, the report says. But so far climate change adaptation has largely been the responsibility of the weaker institutional areas: environment, development and disaster risk reduction.

"We cannot continue to work in silos and with the gaps between institutions that so often prevent coordinated and coherent action," said Carlsson in a statement. "Climate change affects all sectors - we must consequently work across all of them."

The report includes examples of how individuals, communities and governments are experiencing and responding to the impacts of a changing climate in Mali, Cambodia and Bolivia.

Antonio Mamani is a small farmer living near Lake Titicaca to the west of the Bolivian capital La Paz, who has struggled to grow enough potatoes this year amid a drought. He wants government help to access faster-growing potato varieties, crop insurance, weather forecasting and protection from the malarial mosquitoes moving into his area for the first time.

Meanwhile, the government is trying to factor climate change into its development planning and tap into the knowledge of indigenous people like Mamani, as fast-melting glaciers threaten to inundate La Paz, and floods, droughts and forest fires eat into the nation's gross domestic product.

The pressing challenge for the international community, as highlighted by the commission's report, is how to help Mamani, his fellow farmers and the Bolivian government meet their needs fast enough to stop climate change causing serious damage to the economy, ecosystems and people's lives.

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