The body running the new UN Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) caused by climate change has recommended that it should focus initially on helping governments rather than local communities deal with the aftermath of climate-driven disasters like floods and droughts.
A proposal by the FRLD’s secretariat, which will be debated at the fund’s board meeting in Barbados next week, says that its 2025-2026 start-up phase should prioritise government support and only later give small grants to communities – something activists have called for – and pay for insurance.
The secretariat aims to launch the fund’s start-up phase by the fourth quarter of 2025, with the first allocations of money for countries likely to be handed out in 2026, just over three years since the fund was agreed at COP27 in Egypt after years of resistance from rich polluting nations.
The FRLD secretariat, led by Senegalese-American banker Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, says its early activities should be “programmatic approaches for long-term needs”, “readiness support for country-led approaches” and “rapid disbursement via direct budget support”. These are all ways to help governments tackle loss and damage by preparing and bolstering their national systems.
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Harjeet Singh, founding director of the India-based Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, welcomed the secretariat’s three priority areas, adding that they align with developing countries’ demands.
But he criticised the deferral of “critical” small grants for local people. “Delaying the operationalisation of small grants, as advocated by civil society, sidelines frontline communities who are already bearing the brunt of climate impacts. Their inclusion cannot be postponed,” he told Climate Home.
“The board must recognise that advancing climate justice requires frontline communities not only to be supported,” he added, “but meaningfully empowered as key actors in both immediate and long-term responses to loss and damage.”
Start with governments
Programmatic approaches are broader, longer-term partnerships with a government that address complex, systemic issues rather than project-based funding which is usually short-term and deals with a single situation.
Readiness support means improving governments’ abilities to respond to climate impacts. The FRLD’s proposal gives examples like conducting risk assessments, setting up early warning systems for extreme weather, making schools and hospitals more resilient to climate change, and educating people on slow-developing climate threats like sea level rise.
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Direct budget support is sending money to governments after a climate disaster to fund their response, which they can spend how they choose. The FRLD says the money could be used for temporary housing for displaced people, cash-for-work schemes and reconnecting power supplies, water and sanitation.
The secretariat proposes that small grants for community-led initiatives may be considered towards the end of the two-year start-up period, when the capacity of the secretariat – whose executive director was only appointed in September – has expanded.
The same would apply to risk-sharing and insurance mechanisms, where the fund subsidises insurance against climate disasters, and performance-based payment initiatives where funds are handed out when milestones in minimising loss and damage are achieved.
The fund’s board has decided that decisions made about the start-up phase will not necessarily set precedents for how the fund works permanently. But Lien Vandamme, a campaigner with the Center for International Environmental Law, told Climate Home that “choices made during this phase will demonstrate where the Board’s priorities lie”.
How much for the most vulnerable countries?
Governments have already agreed that small island developing states (SIDS) and the world’s least developed countries (LDCs) should get a minimum share of the fund’s resources, with donor pledges currently standing at less than $800 million.
The secretariat proposes two options to ensure this. One is a floor for SIDS and LDCs together of somewhere between a quarter and a half of the money. The other is two separate floors – one for SIDS and one for LDCs.
After the start-up period, the fund proposes several options to ensure that one country or group of countries don’t take too much of the money.
One is a percentage cap per country or region, another is a percentage threshold above which the secretariat will monitor allocations, and the third has no percentages but agrees that the secretariat will try to ensure funding is allocated across regions in a balanced manner.
After the start-up phase, there could also be caps on the three different streams of funding – programmatic approaches, rapid disbursement and readiness support.
The secretariat proposes that the start-up phase will prioritise grants, with loans on better-than-market terms coming in later, and that 155 entities accredited to other UN funds like the Green Climate Fund and Adaptation Fund will automatically be accredited to the FRLD.
Need billions, got millions
Despite pledging around $766 million to the fund, governments have so far only signed contribution agreements for $469 million and actually paid in $261 million. The United Arab Emirates has not turned its $100-million commitment – which made headlines at COP28 in Dubai – into a contribution agreement or made a bank transfer.
The US did pay its $17.5-million pledge before Donald Trump took office. Since Trump came to power, vowing to walk away from the UN climate process, the US has surrendered its seat on the FRLD board, which will now go to another developed country.
The Loss and Damage Collaboration, a network of NGOs working on the issue, has estimated that developing countries’ loss and damage needs add up to around $400 billion a year. One climate disaster alone – the 2022 floods in Pakistan – inflicted $30 billion in damage and economic losses, with an additional $16 billion needed to rebuild, according to an international assessment.
Compared with these numbers, the initial amounts wealthy governments have offered to the FRLD fall far short of the rising costs of responding to and repairing the negative impacts of climate change on economies and people.
The post Loss and damage fund proposes helping governments first, local communities later appeared first on Climate Home News.
Loss and damage fund proposes helping governments first, local communities later
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.
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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
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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