Governments will meet this weekend for a last-ditch attempt to bridge deep divisions between rich and poor countries over how to get money to vulnerable people afflicted by climate disaster. Talks over funds for “loss and damage”, which refers to the rescue and rehabilitation of countries and communities experiencing the effects of extreme weather, started in March but broke down in rancour two weeks ago.
Countries have reconvened in Abu Dhabi for a final two-day meeting, ending on Saturday night, to try to resolve the outstanding problems ahead of the UN Cop28 climate summit, which begins in the United Arab Emirates at the end of this month. Forging a compromise this weekend is viewed as essential to making progress on loss and damage at Cop28, as campaigners fear if there is not broad agreement before the summit the plans will become bogged down in the complex Cop negotiations.
Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network International, said: “The meeting is a make-or-break moment that will determine the success or failure of the new loss and damage fund. We must bridge the trust gap, operationalise the fund, and provide the necessary support to those who need it most. We cannot afford to fail as the lives and livelihoods of millions are at stake.”
But there remains a chasm between developed countries, who want cash contributions to be voluntary and to come from large emerging economies such as China and Gulf petrostates, as well as traditional donors such as the US and Europe, and poor nations who are concerned over how the fund will be governed and how they will be able to access the rescue funds they desperately need.
All of the world’s governments agreed last year at Cop27 in Egypt that a loss and damage fund should be set up – a historic first step that developing countries had been seeking for more than a decade. Poor countries have contributed least to the climate crisis, with tiny carbon footprints compared to the rich world, but they bear the brunt of extreme weather around the world, owing to geography, the basic state of their infrastructure and a lack of resources.
The floods that devastated Pakistan just over a year ago, and the drought that brought crippling hunger to the horn of Africa, are two examples of extreme weather driven and exacerbated by the climate crisis, where loss and damage funds could have helped vulnerable people in dire need. Disasters such as these are forecast to become much more frequent as global temperatures rise further, and hundreds of billions of dollars a year will be needed to repair the damage.
The main areas of contention are over how the fund should be governed, who should contribute to the fund, and who should be allowed to access the cash. Some rich countries, including the US, have pushed for the fund to be hosted by the World Bank, arguing that it provides a ready-made structure to enable cash to be gathered and flow as quickly as possible. Setting up a new fund from scratch would be slower, more cumbersome and costly, they contend.
But many campaigners reject this, suspecting that rich countries favour the World Bank as it gives them, as large donors, more control. They point to the World Bank’s overheads – at least one similar fund has been charged 24% of its funds as a “hosting fee”, which pays for the bank’s bureaucracy, including its staff pension funds.
Accessing World Bank funds is slow and difficult, and much of the finance provided comes in the form of loans rather than grants. Many also have longstanding grudges against the Bank for its failure to focus on climate finance, which led to the ousting of the Trump-appointed president David Malpass earlier this year.