Loss and damage fund

The big news from the first day of the COP28 climate summit was the launch of the climate “loss and damage” fund, with pledges totaling over $500 million. Almost half the amount was from the EU while Germany and the UAE — which is hosting the event — pledged $100 million each. But while the initial pledges do offer a promising start, they are a drop in the ocean. The world needs billions, not millions, to compensate and recover from damage due to climate disasters. The 2022 floods in Pakistan alone caused over $40 billion in damage and economic losses. The entire fund, as it stands, would not even cover the cost of roadwork in the flood zones.

Much more is needed in the fund, and the world’s biggest polluters need to step up in a big way. The US pledge of just $17.5 million is laughable, given that the country is the world’s second-largest polluter and has the biggest per capita among large countries. However, the relatively small US commitment is infinitely higher than several other major polluters, who have not pledged anything so far. Chief among these is China, which may not be at the same level of development as most of the Western world, but as the world’s largest overall polluter, should bear some responsibility. The same goes for India, which is the world’s third-largest polluter, and several fossil fuel exporters, who are profiting off the pollution that is literally fueling climate change.

Representatives from the least developed and most climate-sensitive countries have said the fund should be at least $100 billion, and many billions more. For comparison, US President Joe Biden recently asked Congress for $75 billion to fund the wars in Ukraine and Israel, with few eyebrows raised. But much like the wars or other examples of foreign interference in different countries, the root of the problem in funding climate change-related initiatives is that the US and other rich countries bear almost all of the responsibility for causing the problem but insist that the victims should ‘share’ the cost to fix them.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2023.

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