With simply $69 million within the checking account of the fledgling loss and harm fund to date, its new government director was urged to maintain working prices as little as doable at his first board assembly this month.

Board members from 26 governments world wide questioned the fund’s present and deliberate spending on consultants, business-class airplane tickets and the necessity to have a deputy government director, on the four-day assembly within the Philippines.

Harjeet Singh, a local weather activist who was on the assembly, informed Local weather House the fund’s secretariat “should train the utmost warning and prudence in utilising assets supposed for weak communities recovering from local weather impacts. It bears a profound accountability to make selections judiciously, notably regarding its dimension and journey expenditures.”

Local weather survivors’ fund

Governments agreed to arrange the fund, which goals to assist individuals whose lives have been shattered by excessive climate and rising seas fuelled by local weather change, on the COP27 local weather summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, after three a long time of advocacy led by island nations.

Negotiators on the fund’s board – 12 from developed and 14 from growing nations – have spent the 2 years since then discussing the small print of how the fund will work and, in September, they selected Senegalese-American banker Ibrahima Cheikh Diong to be its first government director.

Senegalese banker Ibrahima Cheikh Diong picked to steer new loss and harm fund

At his first assembly with the board final week in Manila, Diong laid out his plan to get the organisation up and working in order that it could possibly begin giving out cash by the top of 2025.

The plan entails intensive use of exterior consultants – however some board members pushed again in opposition to the prices concerned. Diong introduced a finances that put aside practically $0.7m to pay consultants within the first six months of 2025, out of a complete finances of $4.3m.

Sudanese board member Sumaya Zakieldeen mentioned the organisation – whose full title is the Fund for Responding to Loss and Injury (FRLD) – ought to transfer in direction of getting in-house employees to do as a lot of the work as doable, as quick as doable subsequent yr. 

She mentioned she discovered the prospect of ready till 2026 to get many of the employees employed “somewhat bit scary” as a result of it might imply utilizing exterior advisers and consultants within the interim – “and we all know the fee implications of that”.

Fiji’s Daniel Lund, nevertheless, mentioned he supported the usage of short-term consultants in order that the fund can keep on observe. “We don’t see every other technique to ship that substance within the time-frames that we put in place,” he mentioned.

World Financial institution raises $100 billion for poor nations in enhance for local weather finance

Enterprise-class controversy

An additional $0.6m can be spent on employees journey within the first half of 2025. Because the fund is hosted by the World Financial institution, it has taken on the financial institution’s human assets coverage, together with its journey coverage which permits employees to go enterprise class if the flight is over 5 hours.

Denmark’s Jens Fugl mentioned the $0.6m was “substantial”, including that “journey ought to be on a need-to foundation” and “not everybody from the secretariat must be in any respect board conferences, as a result of that might actually be a major value that we should always attempt to keep away from”.

Diong replied that he needed to develop a “bottom-up method” by participating with a spread of teams world wide and “you’ll be able to’t try this from Washington DC”, the place the fund relies on the World Financial institution’s headquarters. 

He added that journey was vital to steer governments to offer more cash to the fund. However, he promised, “we can be extraordinarily delicate in ensuring that we don’t over-travel”.

The board members are usually not employed by the fund, which suggests they don’t seem to be certain by the World Financial institution’s guidelines and might set their very own journey coverage. The board determined that developed-country governments can pay for their very own representatives to journey to conferences whereas the fund can pay for developing-country board members, their alternate member and one adviser every.

They determined to repeat the coverage of the United Nations and the Inexperienced Local weather Fund, which is that flights ought to be economic system class until they’re 9 hours or longer, when personnel can selected enterprise class however are “inspired to voluntarily downgrade”.

This coverage was resisted by the US and Denmark, who needed extra economic system journey to cut back spending and emissions. The US’s Rebecca Lawlor mentioned that flying enterprise class produces thrice as a lot greenhouse gasoline as economic system class, whereas Denmark’s Fugl mentioned officers’ mode of journey is “one thing there’s quite a lot of scrutiny about”.

How can governments deal with loss and harm on the nationwide degree?

However the Philippines’ board member Mark Dennis Y.C. Joven – whose nation is the board’s authorized host – questioned why the fund’s developing-country board members ought to observe a special journey coverage from the fund’s employees. He requested if that might trigger “administrative inefficiencies and delays” and “elevate the problem of unfair therapy or discrimination”. 

The fund plans to spend $261,000 subsequent yr, primarily on getting its developing-country board members, alternates and advisers to a board assembly in Barbados. A number of developed-country board members known as for extra digital conferences, however developing-country members largely opposed this, citing issues with web connectivity and anti-social hours.

Late funds

Diong’s proposal to rent a deputy government director early subsequent yr was additionally questioned. Board members from Sudan and Honduras requested for extra justification for the place, whereas the Democratic Republic of Congo’s member mentioned the board shouldn’t micromanage.

Diong mentioned his deputy would give attention to operations, advocacy and communications which might unlock Diong to work on elevating cash, notably pressuring rich nations to transform their pledges into precise monetary transfers.

Whereas wealthy nations have promised $749m to the fund – most if it a yr in the past at COP28 – simply $69m has landed in its coffers to this point, with the World Financial institution anticipating this to rise to $150m by the top of the yr. The UAE, UK, France and Italy between them owe over $350m.

In Baku final month, COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev pushed governments to pay up. “All international locations which have pledged cash should full their contribution agreements,” he mentioned. On prime of that, “we want extra pledges so we are able to meet the pressing wants of local weather change victims,” he added.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; modifying by Megan Rowling)