"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.

---