Half-Billion-Dollar for Loss & Damage Fund Agreed on First Day of COP28

[Dubai, 30 Nov 2023] On the opening day of the #COP28 Summit, the Parties reached a milestone agreement on seeding the Loss and Damage Fund with nearly USD 480 million.

The Loss and Damage Fund is targeted at economically vulnerable countries who are most severely affected by #ClimateChange. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) fall under this category. These countries have been fighting for decades to secure a compensation from Advanced Economies that are also the biggest emitters of #GreenhouseGases.

Then, during #COP27 in Egypt in 2022, the Parties finally on setting the Loss and Damage Fund in principle. It took nearly a year to get it started and to become operational.

Nevertheless, it sets a positive tone for the COP28 as the Loss and Damage Fund was seen as a low-hanging fruit. The main item on the COP28 agenda is the Global Stocktake which will review the climate accounts of all participations against their Nationally Determined Contributions (#NCC) and the progress on containing global warming within a 1.5C degree rise.

As the host country, the UAE took the lead by first committing USD 100 million to the Fund. The European Union followed suit with USD 275 million. The UK, which came out of the EU, put in another USD 75. On the other hand, the USA — which is one of the current biggest polluters — only chipped in USD 17.5 million. Closing the line, Japan pledged USD 10 million.

The COP meetings have been criticized as being talk shops full of empty rhetorics. Therefore, the material progress on the Loss and Damage Fund is widely perceived as a major breakthrough. However, the amount mobilized falls well short of the amount needed for climate action.

It is a much awaited first step and a great positive development, nonetheless. One can only hope that the Fund will grow significantly in the future in order to be able to make an impact on #ClimateChange.