UN Climate Crisis Fund to pay $20 Million to Nepal after Devastating Floods

The United Nations’ climate loss and damage fund on Thursday began to provide $20 million in relief sought by flood-hit Nepal, the first time it has earmarked money to any country, in a major test of the body’s legitimacy.

The fund’s board, during its first special meeting, voted to set aside the modest sum for the Himalayan country, which was slammed in August by tsunami-like floods precipitated by a climate-induced ice and rock avalanche that killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,000 missing.

The board’s Dominican co-chair, Camila Minerva Rodriguez Tavarez, described the achievement as “truly historic” and praised members for “allowing us to act promptly and have a response to Nepal”.IIt’sa bfirststep ttowarda landmark. But it’s also a proof of how far the fund still has to go,” Harjeet Singh, founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation and global convenor of the Fill the Fund campaign, which has been pressuring the fund, told AFP.

The decision, however, does not imply Nepal would get the funds right now, which is less than 0.5 pepercentf the government’s $4.78 billion estimate for reconstruction. The setting up of the “Fund for responding to Loss and Damage was a hard-won victory by developing countries, many of them among the least responsible for climate change but most vulnerable to its repercussions, at the UN climate conferences in 2022 and 2023. 

The fund was set up in response to calls for climate reparations from large historical polluters, although those ultimately did not materialise. But critics have complained since its launch about both the meagre meageres from affluent countries  $822 million to date  and a distribution cycle that is detached from climate calamities.

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