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Five countries and the EU have pledged more than $420mn to seed a historic new “loss and damage” fund to help developing nations deal with climate change, marking an early success for negotiators at COP28 in Dubai.
An agreement to set up the fund was struck last year at COP27 in Egypt as a key outcome of an otherwise fraught summit, but for the past year there have been clashes over the details of the fund, including the basic issues of where it should be hosted, who should pay in and who should benefit.
The United Arab Emirates and Germany pledged $100mn each to the fund, the UK committed $50mn, with US and Japan bringing up the rear with just $17.5mn and $10mn respectively.
An EU representative said it would give $145mn on top of Germany’s contribution on behalf of the 27-member bloc.
Negotiators hope there will be advance pledges from other individual European countries before the summit ends.
Despite the long and tough negotiations to set up the fund, COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber said the timeline was “unprecedented” for a UN process.
UN top climate official Simon Stiell said the funding for loss and damage had given the UN climate conference “a running start”.
Developing country negotiator and special climate envoy to Barbados, Avinash Persaud said it was a “hard-fought historic agreement”.
“It shows recognition that climate loss and damage is not a distant risk but part of the lived reality of almost half of the world’s population,” he said.
German development minister Svenja Schulze said her country and the UAE were asking “all countries that are willing and able” to make contributions.
“After all, many countries that were still developing countries 30 years ago can now afford shouldering their share of responsibility for global climate-related loss and damage,” she said.
In talks ahead of COP28 western nations tried to get Saudi Arabia, as a wealthy fossil fuel-based economy, to contribute, but this was rebuffed.
Developing countries have argued that wealthy nations — responsible for about 80 per cent of historical greenhouse gas emissions — should play a guide role in giving money to the new fund. The US and others have insisted that no country should have an obligation to pay into the fund.
Earlier this year, developing nations threatened to walk out on talks as the US and others pushed for the World Bank to host the fund, instead of countries setting up an independent facility.
The 77 developing countries initially objected to the Bank hosting the facility, on the basis of poor past encounter with its bureaucracy.
All countries finally agreed that the World Bank will host the fund, but its role will be regularly reviewed over the next five years.
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