Published

3 years ago

October 9, 2023

Alice Rush

Governments are starkly divided over plans for a loss and damage fund, with two months to go until it is due to be established.

While rich and poor countries have agreed to set up a fund to address loss and damage caused by climate change, they are miles apart on who pays and who benefits.

At a ministerial meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Friday, there was little sign of bridging the gap. The event complemented ongoing technical discussions ahead of Cop28 climate talks in Dubai this December, where decisions are due on how to get the fund up and running.

Ana Mulio Alvarez, an analyst at E3G, said the meeting “did not advance negotiations but it served as a political moment to put the cards on the table more publicly”.

A transitional committee has been working since March to draw up the rules for the fund.

Who gets the money?

One of the major sticking points is the question of who should be eligible for help.

The decision adopted at last year’s Cop27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, says it should assist “developing countries that are particularly vulnerable” to climate change impacts. That is open to interpretation.

For the vast majority of rich countries, the pool of beneficiaries should be limited.

Developing countries call for $100 billion loss and damage target

The EU’s interim climate chief Maroš Šefčovič told the meeting that the resources should “explicitly target countries and its communities that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, such as least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDs)”.

His views were echoed by the representatives of the US, UK and Australian governments, among others.

‘No discrimination’

Developing countries disagree with the position, arguing that all of them should be able to tap into the fund’s coffers.

Speaking on behalf of the G77 group of developing countries, a representative from Cuba said “the fund should operate without discrimination”.

At UN climate summit big polluters’ absence speaks volumes

Among the most vocal campaigners for a fund open to all is Pakistan, where devastating floods killed more than 1,700 people and caused damage totaling more than $30 billion last year. Classed as middle income by the World Bank, it would not automatically qualify for support based on a tight definition of vulnerability.

“All vulnerable developing countries, irrespective of their level of development and geographical grouping, must be eligible,” said Pakistan’s foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani. “We would not be able to lend our support to any such select, divisive and exclusionary approach.”

Speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, Samoa said all developing countries should be eligible, but the fund’s resources should be “allocated equitably” so that the small island states are “not left behind and forgotten”.

Who pays?

The question of who pays into the fund is equally contentious.

When the European Union opened the door to a fund at the Cop27 climate talks last year, its then climate chief Frans Timmermans said large economies like China should also pay. The agreement was eventually struck without that condition, but the same debate has now reemerged.

EU’s Šefčovič said the fund should attract contributions from “all well-resourced governments”, in addition to innovative sources of financing, philanthropies, and the private sector. Spain and France floated the idea of introducing new taxes and levies as a way to bolster resources.

Five climate announcements from UNGA & Climate Week NYC

The UK’s energy minister Graham Stuart said governments “must break out” of “outdated categories from decades ago”, to deliver the volume of support needed. His statement was likely referencing the UN classification of developed countries established in 1992. The fund “must be financed by all, all of those capable of doing so,” Stuart added.

Similarly, the US disagreed with the notion that only developed countries would be invited to pay into the fund. “There is no existing donor base for loss and damage funding, it is a new idea,” a government official said.

The counterargument is that history matters. Developed countries got that way by being early adopters of coal, oil and gas. Emissions dating back to the industrial revolution are still in the air causing suffering today.

“Developed countries should effectively fulfill their funding obligations,” said China’s representative. “Developed countries who shoulder historical responsibilities for climate change should provide new additional finance for the funding arrangement of the fund in the form of grants supplemented by concessional loans.”

Debt trap fears

Developed and developing countries also disagree on what the money should be spent on, how the fund should be governed and whether it should be delivered as grants or loans

Avinash Persaud, special finance envoy to Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados, is on the transitional committee. He told Climate Home he feared some developed countries see the loss and damage mechanism more as a way to coordinate existing funding that is primarily loan-based.

“Countries that are particularly vulnerable are already highly indebted,” he said. “We are going to be drowning in debt if we need to get loans every time get hit by a climate event.”

Time running out

With the clock ticking to the climate summit, the time to strike a compromise is limited.

The transitional committee is holding another round of talks next month, before preparing its recommendations for governments to consider in Dubai.

Persaud said he remained “cautiously optimistic” that countries will reach an agreement.

E3G’s Mulio Alvarez said the disagreements put the negotiations in a “tough position”.

“Real steps need to be taken towards a transformation of the financial architecture in order to meet needs, rebuild trust and increase understanding between parties,” she added. “There is a real risk that the fund could be set up but not adequately funded or truly operational.”

The post Ministerial shows fault lines on climate loss and damage fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2023/09/25/ministerial-shows-fault-lines-on-climate-loss-and-damage-fund/

Climate Change

Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Protecting Colombia’s Magdalena River From Fracking

Published

7 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Yuvelis Morales Blanco, 24, helped halt fracking along Colombia’s largest river and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. She’s faced death threats and exile for her advocacy.

By Katie Surma

As a child growing up along the banks of Colombia’s Magdalena River, Yuvelis Morales Blanco learned to read the water.

Rights of Nature Defender Wins Goldman Prize for Protecting Colombia’s Magdalena River From Fracking

Climate Change

As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location

Published

12 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Freepoint Eco-Systems seeks to become a major player in so-called “chemical recycling.” Some residents and environmental advocates are fighting back.

By James Bruggers

Belching smoke from a new plastic waste processing plant in central Ohio has stirred opposition to an even larger “chemical recycling” factory planned for Arizona by the same company.

As a Plastic Waste Plant Violates Pollution Rules, Its Owner Makes the Case for a Second Location

Climate Change

Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’

Published

15 hours ago

April 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Countries attending a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel summit have been asked to consider “action recommendations” such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, according to a preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief.

Around 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April to debate ways to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in the face of worsening climate change and sky-high oil prices.

The talks come after a large group of nations campaigned for, but ultimately failed, to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.

The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.

Ahead of country officials arriving in Santa Marta, a global group of academics will gather in the city this week to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on fossil-fuel phaseout, which will then inform debate among policymakers.

A preliminary scientific “synthesis report” circulated to governments attending the talks and seen by Carbon Brief offers 12 “action insights” for countries to consider, along with a wide range of “action recommendations”.

These recommendations range from “phase out subsidies on fossil-fuel production and consumption” to “kick-start a forum to develop a legal framework to ban fossil-fuel advertisements”.

‘Rapid’ assessment

The preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief – titled, “Action insights for the Santa Marta process” – is the result of some rapid work by an “ad-hoc” group of around 24 scientists.

It is designed to present governments attending the talks with concrete and actionable recommendations for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

The preliminary version, which includes recommendations such as “halting all new fossil fuel expansion”, has already been circulated to governments, with a view that this could help them to prepare for the talks in advance.

It will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.

The process to produce the report began shortly after the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November, explains its lead author, Dr Friedrich Bohn, a research scientist and co-founder of the Earth Resilience Institute in Germany. He tells Carbon Brief:

“When [Brazil] announced there would be a Santa Marta conference led by Colombia and the Netherlands, I was sitting listening with a small group of scientists. We thought: ‘This is great news, but it should be supported by scientific expertise.’”

One of the members of Bohn’s group had a pre-existing relationship with the Colombian government, allowing a dialogue to quickly be established, he continues:

“In the beginning, the idea was to just write a peer-reviewed paper. But, because of this close connection to the Colombian government and some feedback from them, the synthesis paper evolved.”

The report came out of a “very rapidly evolved process” that relied on the “goodwill” and “enthusiasm” of the academics involved, adds coordinating author Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University. (Jotzo is a former Carbon Brief contributing editor.) He tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s an attempt to get broad coverage on relevant topics from researchers with good expertise and reputation.”

The group of 24 scientists involved spent around two months compiling the “action insights” for the report, drawing on their expertise and the latest available research, says Jotzo.

Given the rapid nature of the report, it does not aim to be “completist”, has not been externally reviewed and did not follow a stringent process for author selection comparable to that used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, he adds.

The contributors to the report currently skew to the global north and include more men than women, adds Bohn.

‘Direct guidance’

In a departure from IPCC reports, the preliminary Santa Marta synthesis report offers “very direct guidance to action”, says Jotzo.

The report lists 12 “action insights”, each with three “action recommendations”. (The list was cut down from a shortlist of about 40-50 insights, Carbon Brief understands.)

One of the most striking in the draft is “action insight 5”, which says:

“Take immediate measures to prevent future emissions. Ban new fossil infrastructure, mandate deep methane cuts, accelerate electrification and inscribe fossil-fuel phase-down targets in NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and clean-energy pathways support to low and middle income countries (LMICs).”

The accompanying three “action recommendations” include “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects ahead of a final investment decision”, “implementing deep, legally binding methane cuts in the energy sector” and “inscrib[ing] targets for fossil-fuel phase down, electrification and green exports in NDCs”.

(The draft report includes multiple references to “phasing out” and “phasing down” fossil fuels, rather than the “transition away from fossil fuels” language that was, ultimately, agreed by countries at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023.)

Another action insight says “public support for climate action is broadly underestimated and undermined by interest groups, but it can be strengthened by debunking greenwashing narratives”.

One recommendation for this insight is that nations “reject natural gas as a bridging technology and CCS [carbon capture and storage] techniques as scalable compensation”.

In a letter introducing the report to governments and civil society, the scientists note that making direct recommendations is a “challenge for our community”, but added:

“However, in the spirit of a constructive collaboration between science and policymaking, we allowed ourselves to identify some potential courses of action that our community would recommend for each particular issue – and we invite you to weigh these against your own circumstances and pick up whatever seems most useful for you and your colleagues.”

The prescriptiveness of the recommendations – something strictly prohibited in IPCC reports – was an explicit request from the Colombian government, Bohn says:

“The idea of actionable recommendations was introduced by the Colombian government.

“There was some discussion within the team about this. It’s a tricky area when you leave science and move to consultation. Therefore, we agreed, in the end, to call them ‘actionable recommendations’ and to make them as precise as possible, from the scientific perspective.”

Jotzo, a veteran of the IPCC process, tells Carbon Brief that it was “very liberating” to work on a report with a “free-form process”:

“The bulk of policy-related research is very readily deployed to recommendations pointing out what countries could do. The IPCC process, for example, just doesn’t allow that. As far as the summary for policymakers in the IPCC is concerned, it will usually be governments that filter out anything that could be interpreted as a specific recommendation.”

He adds that the hope is that some of the action insights might be reflected in the high-level segment of the Santa Marta conference:

“No one is under any illusions that governments will walk away from the Santa Marta conference and will have made a decision to implement recommendations one, seven and nine – or something like that. But it is a chance to insert directly applicable action points into national and plurilateral policy agendas.”

Colombia calling

The preliminary report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the “pre-academic segment” of the Santa Marta talks.

This is taking place from 24-26 April, ahead of the “high-level segment” involving ministers and other policymakers from 28-29 April.

The pre-academic segment will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, Carbon Brief understands.

The high-level segment is expected to be attended by representatives from around 50 countries, including COP31 host Turkey and major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway.

Countries expected to attend account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.

At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.

This report is in turn set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.

The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.