I currently sit in the back of the room of today’s seventh hour of an ADP draft decision text negotiation. The delegates have been working tirelessly for the past week to refine this decision before the ADP is set to close tomorrow. The meeting I am attending is only half of the battle. Another equally large group of delegates is currently editing another set of paragraphs from the same decision, those focused on the Workstream 1 or “the Paris agreement.”

Despite the dragging pace, progress is being made. Before entering negotiations in this COP, developed country parties were largely unwilling to include adaptation as a key part of closing the pre-2020 ambition gap. Over the course of these sessions, more and more developed country parties are placing equal importance on adaptation as they are on mitigation.