UN Climate Change Executive Secretary has called on nations and stakeholders to utilize adaptation to climate change impacts such as storms or floods as an opportunity to build a better world for all. Speaking at the closing ceremony of the fifth National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Expo in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, Ms Espinosa emphasized that adapting to climate impacts is as much an opportunity to build resilient economies and societies as it is to improving the state of the world.

People fly to the moon, they install equipment on Mars or distant planets, but no scientist was ever able to prevent a thunderstorm. How could one explain these unsettling light and thunder rumbles? Scientists know a bit of whatever it is that happens up there, but not everything, because thunderstorms are highly complicated.

Every day, we are fully immersed in the weather systems that surround us. Over sustained periods of time it is these same weather systems that lead, ultimately, to broader changes in our climate. Climate change, therefore, is just our everyday weather experiences colliding with a broader, global reality.

Climate change presents the single biggest threat to sustainable development everywhere and its widespread, unprecedented impacts disproportionately burden the poorest and most vulnerable. 

Urgent action to halt climate change and deal with its impacts is integral to the successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).