The board of the loss and damage fund is set to pick its host nation in July as it speeds up the process to ensure hard-hit countries can directly access money to help them recover from the unavoidable effects of climate change.
As the 26-member board held its first three-day meeting in Abu Dhabi this week, discussions centered on the administrative steps needed to get the fund up and running, and giving out money as soon as possible.
Selecting the host country for the board is a priority because only then will it be able to take up legal responsibility and enter into formal arrangements with the World Bank, which governments have asked to host the loss and damage fund “on an interim basis” despite the initial reluctance of developing countries.
The World Bank has until mid-June to confirm it is willing and able to take on this role. The decision rests largely on the bank’s ability to meet 11 conditions, including allowing developing-country governments and organisations working with vulnerable communities to receive money directly without going through intermediaries like multilateral development banks or UN agencies.
“Too many cooks”
Daniel Lund, a loss and damage board member from Fiji, said that overhead costs and management fees from multiple layers of middlemen swallow up a high proportion of development funding in general.
“For small island developing states, it is always too many cooks and not enough ingredients,” he told Climate Home. “A lack of direct access is a particularly unacceptable scenario when it comes to finance for addressing loss and damage because much of what we need to do is direct support [to] the individuals and communities that bear the burden [of climate change]”.
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Concerns have been fuelled by the World Bank’s lack of experience in working with direct access to communities in its other operations, climate finance experts said. But during the meeting in Abu Dhabi, the bank sought to provide reassurances, indicating its willingness to be flexible on this matter and find a solution.
Renaud Seligmann, the World Bank representative at the meeting, told board members the bank is looking into a model that would “break new ground” and that it is “prepared to innovate and design with you to make it work”.
Host selection fast-tracked
For the World Bank, a primary concern lies with the risks attached to giving money to hundreds of small entities that may have less strict compliance processes. For that reason, it wants the board of the loss and damage fund to take on legal responsibility in case funds are misused. And as that legal personality can only be obtained from the host country, the selection process is being fast-tracked.
Interested countries have until early June to submit their candidacy – Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas and the Philippines have already thrown their hats in the ring. The board is expected to make a final decision at the next board meeting scheduled for July 9-12.
The board is picking up the pace of its work after its first meeting was delayed by three months as a result of developed countries’ failure to appoint their members on time.
A person moves their belongings at a flooded residential complex following heavy rainfall, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, April 18, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky
The board was forced to tackle logistical challenges on the final day when stormy weather in Abu Dhabi moved the deliberations online. Scientists have warned that the Arabian peninsula will suffer more heavy rain at 1.5C of global warming than it did in pre-industrial times, and recent floods in the neighbouring city of Dubai shut down the airport and caused major economic damage.
Lund said the progress made at the first meeting “in some respects was surprising”, but there is still a long way to go before money reaches climate-vulnerable communities. “We have clear instructions, but translating that blueprint into contracts, roles, policies, locations, jobs and structures is going to be a shared headache for all board members over the course of this year and beyond,” he added.
Civil society at the table
Civil society representatives argued there is a need to broaden the direct participation of frontline communities struggling with climate impacts in the fund’s operations. The first board meeting limited participation to two people per UN stakeholder group – some of which represent millions, even billions, of people – such as Indigenous Peoples, youth, and women and girls.
“This fund must be different to fulfill the expectation – people-centered, human rights-based, gender-responsive – from the start, with meaningful participation and engagement throughout,” said Liane Schalatek, associate director of the Heinrich in Washington who attended the board meeting.
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“Board members all stressed the importance of civil society observer and communities engagement and welcomed it,” she added. “Now that verbal support needs to be operationalised, including through dedicated financial support.”
After sorting through all of its procedural matters, the board will start addressing thornier issues such as how to disburse money and how to fill its coffers with more cash. So far, it has garnered about $660 million in pledges.
While board members hope to have the fund’s structure in place by COP29 this November, it is not expected to start handing out money until 2025.
(Reporting by Matteo Civillini; editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)
The post Loss and damage board speeds up work to allow countries direct access to funds appeared first on Climate Home News.
Loss and damage board speeds up work to allow countries direct access to funds
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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