In an auspicious start for the two-week climate summit known as COP28, delegates agreed on the details of a fund to compensate developing countries for damages caused by warming temperatures.
The loss and damage fund, which was first created at last year’s COP27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, has now been “operationalized,” and some countries have already agreed to start paying into it. A draft agreement was circulated earlier in November, though some controversy surrounded its details, like the designation of the World Bank as the home for the fund.
“Right at the start of the UN climate talks, developing and developed nations joined hands to set the loss and damage fund in motion,” said Ani Dasgupta, the president and CEO of the non-profit World Resources Institute, in a statement. “The loss and damage fund will be a lifeline to people in their darkest hour, enabling families to rebuild their homes after disaster strikes, support farmers when their crops are wiped out and relocate those that become permanently displaced by rising seas.”
The quick adoption of the fund is a positive sign as countries gather and try to mobilize action to rapidly cut emissions and limit rising temperatures. Poor countries, which have had very little to do with the proliferating impacts of climate change, will soon start to access the money to help them recover and adapt.
Germany and the COP28 host country UAE each pledged $100 million to the loss and damage fund, according to reporting from The Guardian and others. Other countries including the U.K., the U.S. and Japan will bring the starting pool of money up close to $300 million, and more pledges are expected during the day on Thursday. It’s a far cry from the hundreds of billions in damage the developing world is already experiencing, but before last year’s agreement to create the loss and damage fund, any money at all seemed out of reach.
“These pledges represent a dramatic turn of events compared to just two years ago when it wasn’t certain if developed countries could ever be convinced to back a loss and damage fund,” Dasgupta said, adding that much more money must start to flow soon. “The funding announced at COP28 will be just a down payment to the far greater resources to help people reeling from losses and damage from climate change.”