Toronto — The world’s wealthy cities received a large part of the $323 billion governments spent on measures to adapt to climate change last year, but vulnerable cities in the developing world are falling behind, said a study published on Monday.

Developing-world cities with more than 3 million residents such as Addis Ababa, Lagos and Jakarta, spent a smaller percentage of their GDP on protecting their inhabitants from worsening extreme weather and rising seas than their wealthy counterparts such as New York or Paris, the study said.

That suggests spending on climate adaptation is more strongly linked to protecting capital than helping the world’s poor avert the worst impacts of global warming, said researchers from University College London, who conducted the study.