Final talks over the weekend to agree a proposal for a new climate disaster fund averted a deadlock ahead of the U.N.'s COP28 climate summit later this month, but cracked open tough new questions about who will pay and how soon.
The fifth meeting of a 24-member U.N. committee tasked with designing the fund concluded in Abu Dhabi over the weekend, with support for a "take-it-or-leave-it" deal that would make the World Bank the interim home of the fund and encourage — but not oblige — all countries to contribute to it.
A loss and damage fund would be the first United Nations mechanism dedicated to helping countries that have suffered irreparable climate-driven damage from drought, floods and rising sea levels. It would aim to divert billions of dollars towards nations that are "particularly vulnerable."