The wrath of Hurricane Beryl is putting pressure on an international team of officials to finalize a new fund for victims of climate disasters.
The fund, which will provide aid to developing nations for what’s known as loss and damage in diplomatic circles, earned unanimous backing during last year’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, drawing initial pledges of more than $660 million to cover startup costs. But a 26-member board is still in the process of determining how it will operate ahead of climate talks in November.
It aims to help countries recover from extreme events such as hurricanes or creeping losses caused by rising seas. The fund is viewed as a crucial source of aid for communities that contribute little to planet-warming pollution but are often hit hardest by its increasingly severe impacts.
“I want to thank you in expectation for a response that will be rapid, because we cannot keep talking while people live and die in a crisis that they did not create,” Henrietta Elizabeth Thompson, a board member from Barbados, said Tuesday at the group’s second meeting this year.
