The missing target. Housing security in the indicators of the Global Goal on Adaptation

Housing remains a neglected dimension of climate adaptation, despite being central to how people experience climate risk and vulnerability. This 90-minute debate addresses a critical blind spot in global climate adaptation: the absence of housing security as an explicit objective within the GGA indicators. The event brings together adaptation experts, indicators specialists and housing and human rights practitioners to examine how current metrics risk undermining the right to adequate housing. The discussion is framed by recent developments under the Paris Agreement. Following the adoption of the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience at COP28 and the subsequent UAE–Belém work programme, Parties at CMA 7 in Belém adopted a final list of 59 GGA indicators. Two indicators related to the relocation of infrastructure and settlements raise serious concerns among housing advocates. By tracking relocation as a measurable outcome, these indicators risk normalising relocation as a default adaptation strategy, rather than a last resort. The event will critically examine how relocation-focused indicators may incentivise forced or premature displacement, justify evictions as adaptation progress and rely on narrow definitions of “safer locations” that overlook social vulnerability, future climate risk and human rights. Drawing on evidence from practice, speakers will highlight how poorly designed relocation can increase vulnerability by disrupting livelihoods, tenure security, social networks and cultural ties, even when framed as climate risk reduction. Through scene-setting interventions and a moderated debate, the session will explore when relocation may reduce risk and when it becomes maladaptive; what alternatives exist to relocation as a global adaptation indicator; and how indicators can better capture outcomes rather than activities or movement. Particular attention will be given to rights-based criteria for in-situ upgrading and relocation, safeguards currently missing from GGA indicators and ways to balance in-situ adaptation and relocation where limits to adaptation are reached. The session will conclude by moving from critique to action. It will outline key principles for housing-sensitive GGA indicators and mark the start of a partnership aimed at providing technical input to bridge housing and climate adaptation agendas. Co-organizers will invite the audience to a process of elaborating alternatives that integrate housing security into the GGA.