Climate loss & damage fund ‘the furthest thing imaginable from a success’

The fifth and final meeting of the U.N. Transitional Committee to design a loss and damage fund ahead of COP28 climate summit concluded in Abu Dhabi last month without a mandate that wealthy, industrialized nations pay into it, sources say.
Frequent Mongabay contributor and journalist Rachel Donald joins the Mongabay Newscast as co-host to speak with Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, to unpack this most recent negotiation.
In addition to leaving out a provision for contributions from wealthy nations, the fund will be housed in the World Bank, a global lending institution that continues to fund coal projects and has been linked to human rights abuses.
The text of the fund will move to the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai next month, where it will be considered by member countries.

The Mongabay Newscast welcomes a new co-host, Rachel Donald, to discuss the most recent meeting of the United Nations Transitional Committee to establish the highly anticipated loss and damage fund: a first-of-its-kind global fund, previously intended to compel wealthy industrialized nations to offset the damages incurred by low- and middle-income nations from the impacts of climate change.

The meeting in Abu Dhabi last month was “the furthest thing imaginable from a success,” according to Brandon Wu, the director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA, an NGO that campaigns against poverty and injustice. Wu speaks with Rachel about the reasons why. Listen here:

The 24-member transitional committee meeting to design the text of the loss and damage fund “was mostly a lot of arm-twisting and bullying from developed countries, especially the United States,” according to Wu. Notably, the text in the financial input section fails to include a mandate that wealthier nations are compelled to contribute to it, arguably defeating the purpose of funds intended as reparations to low- and middle-income countries bearing the brunt of climate change impacts. “[A]nd that’s because the United States was essentially vetoing any attempt to include that kind of language.”

Additionally, Wu notes the World Bank is a contentious choice to house and govern a loss and damage fund. The international financing institution funds some of the largest coal developers in Asia, according to a recent report. It also stands accused of complicity in human rights abuses in Tanzania. Rather than put money into an intermediary like the World Bank, Wu says, that money would be best governed by the nations it’s intended for.

There are still more details to iron out in the loss and damage fund, such as the prioritization of who receives funding. Wu says decisions on that process will be made next year. The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) begins late this month in Dubai, running until Dec. 12, when countries may or may not agree to the terms laid out in the current text.

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Rachel Donald is an investigative reporter and journalism lecturer based in London. She hosts the podcast Planet: Critical and her latest thoughts can be found on 𝕏 via @CrisisReports and at Bluesky via @racheldonald.bsky.social.

Mike DiGirolamo is Mongabay’s audience engagement associate. Find him on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram and TikTok.

Banner Image: A man carries relief items along the only surviving road in a flooded region in Pakistan in Sept., 2022. Image by Abdul Majeed/European Union via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).