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COP28 president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber speaks during the Transforming Food Systems in the Face of Climate Change event on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit at Dubai Expo on December 1, 2023. "We delivered world first after world first," the UAE summit presidency said in a further social media update. And we have language on fossil fuels in our final agreement." Many believed the COP28 summit could only be considered a success if it resulted in a deal to phase out all fossil fuels. COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber sparked a backlash earlier this month after he claimed there is "no science" behind calls for a phase-out of fossil fuels.

Persons: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Ludovic Marin, Licypriya Kangujam, Sean Gallup, Wopke Hoekstra, Alok Sharma, Sharma, CNBC's, Simon Stiell, We're, John Kerry, Selma de Montgomery, Avinash Persaud, Mikhail Gitarskiy, Sultan al, Jaber, he'd, Al Organizations: Food Systems, Dubai Expo, Afp, Getty Images, UAE Consensus, UAE, United Arab Emirates, Getty, Russian, BBC, Abu, Abu Dhabi National Oil Co Locations: Dubai, UAE, United Arab, United Arab Emirates, Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia, North America, Paris, United States, China, Denmark, Barbados, Moscow, Abu Dhabi

☆ Countries at COP28 approve climate disaster fund deal details in early breakthrough
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

A man wearing a thawb walks past flags of nations participating in the UNFCCC COP28 Climate Conference the day before its official opening on November 29, 2023 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Countries at the U.N. COP28 summit on Thursday agreed on deal details for a disaster fund to help nations reeling from damages caused by the climate crisis. So far, the pledges to the fund include $100 million from Germany, $100 million from the United Arab Emirates, $17 million from the U.S. and $10 million from Japan. High-income countries, which account for the bulk of historical greenhouse gas emissions, have long opposed the creation of a loss and damage fund to compensate low-income nations. Avinash Persaud, special climate envoy to Barbados, said that the deal reflects "a hard fought historic agreement."

Persons: Friederike Roder, Roder, Avinash Persaud Organizations: United Arab Emirates, UNITED, EMIRATES, United Arab, Bank, Global Citizen Locations: Dubai, United Arab, COP28, United Arab Emirates, COP27, Egypt, Germany, U.S, Japan, Barbados

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. "There was a lot at stake at this meeting," Avinash Persaud, special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados and the country's representative on the U.N. committee, told Reuters. Developing nations argue that rich countries responsible for most of the historical CO2 emissions causing climate change should be obliged to pay - something the United States and other rich nations refused to accept. Mohamed Nasr, Egypt's lead climate negotiator and representative on the committee, told Reuters such pledges would be crucial to the overall COP28 negotiations. If rich nations fail to follow through, he said, it could reopen decades-old fights that have derailed past climate deals - with poorer nations demanding "compensation" from rich nations for causing climate change, or refusing to agree to cut emissions faster without substantially more financial support from rich countries.

Persons: Rula, U.N, Persaud, Jennifer Morgan, Mohamed Nasr, Nasr, Valerie Volcovici, Kate Abnett, Christina Fincher Organizations: Abu Dhabi Sustainability, REUTERS, COP28 Finance, Bank, United, Reuters, U.S . State Department, European Union, Climate, Thomson Locations: UAE, Abu Dhabi, United Nations, Dubai, Barbados, United States, U.S, Egypt, COP28, Germany, Europe's, Berlin

In climate negotiations, "loss and damage" refers to existing costs incurred from climate-fueled weather impacts, such last year's devastating Pakistan flooding. The U.S. is part of a 24-country committee deciding how the fund will work before the COP28 climate summit in Dubai can officially adopt it this year. Both voted to approve new funding arrangements under the condition that the fund not be about liability for rich countries and compensation. Instead, both Washington and Brussels say the fund should be filled from myriad sources including industry taxes, philanthropic donations or other schemes. The world’s least developed nations want the fund to be limited to the neediest nations.

Persons: Akhtar Soomro, that's, ”, Sue Biniaz, Biniaz, Christina Chan, “, “ That’s, Avinash Persaud, Mia Mottley, Persaud, Dileimy Orzoco, Valerie Volcovici, Katy Daigle, Josie Kao Organizations: REUTERS, Rights, . State Department, Reuters, The, State Department, EU, Nonprofit, Thomson Locations: Sehwan, Pakistan, U.S, Washington, The U.S, Dubai, Dominican Republic, Paris, Brussels, China, Barbados, Philippines

The World Bank and others also said they would start adding clauses to lending terms that allow vulnerable states to suspend debt repayments when natural disaster strikes. Specifically, for the first time, the document acknowledged the potential need for richer countries to provide fresh money to multilateral development institutions like the World Bank. Another first was in the explicit target for multilateral development banks to leverage "at least" $100 billion a year in private sector capital when they lend. All eyes now turn to more traditional events later in the year, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings, a G20 meeting in September and the COP28 climate talks in Dubai. Persaud said his focus would be on making sure the plan to scale up multilateral development bank lending was in place by the time of annual meetings in October, and that pilot work began on reducing the cost of capital for developing countries.

Persons: Macron, Mia Mottley, Avinash Persaud, What's, Persaud, Teresa Anderson, They've, Sonia Dunlop, Simon Jessop, Leigh Thomas, Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Mark Heinrich Our Organizations: Global, Pact, Reuters, World Bank, International Maritime Organisation, Paris Summit, Climate Justice, ActionAid, International Monetary Fund, Bank, Thomson Locations: Barbados, PARIS, Bridgetown, Zambia, Paris, Dubai

Ranging from debt relief to climate finance, many of the topics on the agenda take up suggestions from a group of developing countries, led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, dubbed the 'Bridgetown Initiative'. Though binding decisions are not expected, officials involved in the summit's planning said that some strong commitments should be made about financing poor countries. In particular, there should be an announcement that a $100 billion target has been met that will be made available through the International Monetary Fund for vulnerable countries, officials said. The plan, first agreed two years ago at an African finance summit in Paris, calls on wealthy governments to lend unused special drawing rights to the IMF to, in turn, lend to poor countries. Reporting by Leigh Thomas in Paris and Simon Jessop in London; Editing by Christina FincherOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Emmanuel Macron, Mia Mottley, Avinash Persaud, Persaud, Leigh Thomas, Simon Jessop, Christina Fincher Organizations: World Bank, United Nations, Barbados, Bridgetown Initiative, Bretton, International Monetary Fund, IMF, AAA, Paris Club, International Maritime Organization, Thomson Locations: Bridgetown, Mottley, Paris, Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Zambia, China, London

[1/5] A general view of the entrance to the Sharm El-Sheikh International Convention Centre grounds, during the COP27 climate summit, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, November 19, 2022. Kunal Satyarthi, a negotiator for India, said he thought the loss and damage deal would "certainly" pass, and thanked other countries for their flexibility. Norway's climate minister, Espen Barth Eide, meanwhile, said his country was happy with the agreement to create a loss and damage fund. But the possible breakthrough on loss and damage was significant, and "I don't think that should be lost in the mix," he said. For daily comprehensive coverage on COP27 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here.

A G20 declaration on Wednesday said "we will play our part fully in implementing" last year's Glasgow Climate Pact, under which countries pledged to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial times. "As things stand, the Glasgow Climate Pact is broken, but the G20 have the opportunity to fix it." MISSED OPPORTUNITYThe G20 declaration recognised the need to phase down use of unabated coal and phase out "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies. Avinash Persaud, special envoy on climate finance to Prime Minister Mia Motley of Barbados, meanwhile, told Reuters the G20 declaration missed the mark on finance. "Unfunded ambition gets us nowhere fast," Persaud said, adding he wanted G20 countries to unlock more lending from multilateral development banks they control to help climate-vulnerable countries.

"It is not a kind of tactic to avoid formal negotiation on loss and damage funding arrangements here," Schulze said. Some research suggests that by 2030, vulnerable countries could face $580 billion per year in climate-linked "loss and damage". Ghana's finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta, who chairs the V20 group of vulnerable countries, called the creation of the Global Shield "long overdue". Yet some vulnerable countries questioned the scheme's focus on insurance, with insurance premiums adding another cost to cash-strapped countries that have low carbon emissions and contributed least to the causes of climate change. It was not immediately clear how much of the Global Shield funding announced so far was in grant form.

Their agreement to talk again about climate thawed relations frozen earlier this year after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered China by visiting Taiwan. Teresa Ribera, Spain's climate minister, said she was hopeful that the rapprochement would energise negotiations. “This unequivocal signal from the two largest economies to work together to address the climate crisis is more than welcome; it’s essential," Bapna said. Heading into the last week of the two-week conference progress has been slow, frustrating negotiators who are struggling to find consensus on how rich countries should help developing nations meet the cost of climate-fuelled disasters. The outcome on that issue, referred to in climate talks as "loss and damage", could define the perceived success or failure of the COP27 talks.

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