Wamuyu Manyara is the country director of Trócaire Malawi and Tarcizio Kalaundi is the climate response officer.
This week, the Fund for Response to Loss and Damage (FRLD) faces an important decision that will determine its capacity to deal with damage caused by climate change.
Discussions on the Fund’s Resource Mobilization Strategy must get the scale and reach of the Fund right. Failure to do so would risk undermining its role in transferring funds to countries that have lost and suffered, and undermining commitments to climate justice and human rights.
This discussion could not come at a more pressing time. As losses and damages (L&D) continue to escalate globally, and as the world dangerously approaches the 1.5C warming limit of the Paris Agreement, the FRLD also faces the very real risk of bankruptcy by 2027.
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Wamuyu Manyara is the country director of Trócaire Malawi and Tarcizio Kalaundi is the climate response officer.
This week, the Fund for Response to Loss and Damage (FRLD) faces an important decision that will determine its capacity to deal with damage caused by climate change.
Discussions on the Fund’s Resource Mobilization Strategy must get the scale and reach of the Fund right. Failure to do so would risk undermining its role in transferring funds to countries that have lost and suffered, and undermining commitments to climate justice and human rights.
This discussion could not come at a more pressing time. As losses and damages (L&D) continue to escalate globally, and as the world dangerously approaches the 1.5C warming limit of the Paris Agreement, the FRLD also faces the very real risk of bankruptcy by 2027.
As Nigeria loses and destroys the “mirage”, the fund manager ensures that the money is coming
Experts estimate that by 2025, the L&D financing needs of climate-vulnerable countries may reach USD$937 billion. Last year’s major impacts included a series of devastating hurricanes in the Philippines, estimated to have caused losses of more than $5 billion, while in Jamaica, losses and damages caused by Hurricane Melissa were estimated at $12.2 billion.
A bill for one of these disasters will deplete the existing resources of the Fund many times over. Although costs and human rights violations have increased, almost four years after the COP27 agreement, the FRLD is still heavily funded.
The Fund’s pledges ($822 million) are just a fraction of 1% of the year’s loss and damage needs, and nearly half of those pledges ($448 million) have been paid into the Fund to date.
Meanwhile, those who did nothing to cause the climate crisis are facing the worst – and escalating – impacts and are left to foot the bill for the damage that already exists, not to mention the huge non-economic costs to communities. It is therefore imperative that FRLD’s Resource Mobilization Strategy delivers L&D funds as quickly as possible.
The paradox of the donor
Most developed countries will say that more countries should provide funding for L&D. However, this is a mistake – especially when considering the deep chasm between the contributions of the developed countries that are obliged to pay and their fair share as calculated according to their wealth and historical emissions. In addition, some counties and states that are not currently required to contribute are already doing so.
The analysis reveals that, even in a highly unequal scenario where all states including those that contributed nothing to the creation of the climate crisis had to pay for L&D financing, rich countries would still be responsible for most of the L&D financing.
The new loss and damage fund may run out of money next year
The Resource Mobilization Fund strategy should focus political discussions on the ability of rich and polluting regions to raise public funds, based on new L&D funding and additional to existing climate finance commitments and overseas development assistance.
Developed countries have a way to pay and the FRLD should introduce mandatory and sustainable ways to make big polluters, including the richest and most mineral-rich companies, pay for their climate damage.
African influences
Increasingly unpredictable seasons and more frequent and extreme events are causing food insecurity, malnutrition, migration and other human rights risks in climate-vulnerable countries, and communities facing these increasing and compounding impacts must focus on FRLD policies.
In Ethiopia, 2023 saw 24 million people affected by five failed rains leading to food and water shortages, including 90% crop loss in drought-affected areas. Eleven million people needed food assistance, and more than 500,000 people were left homeless. Meanwhile, floods in 2023–24 and landslides in Gofa in 2024 disrupted or destroyed health facilities, displaced thousands of people, and led to outbreaks of cholera, malaria and measles.
Comment: Let’s tax luxury air travel to fund climate adaptation and loss and damage
Today, Somalia is facing one of the most severe drought emergencies in recent history driven by extreme weather. Malnutrition rates continue to exceed estimates and devastating records, with 1.9 million children in Somalia severely malnourished.
In Malawi, child disability has decreased significantly, but climate impacts are now affecting children’s growth and development. Tropical cyclone Freddy in 2023 was one of the worst on record, causing more than 1,200 deaths, displacing half a million people, and causing more than $500 million in damage. Recovery needs for the four major disasters between 2015 and 2023 are estimated at $1.7 billion, equivalent to a quarter of Malawi’s 2026-2027 budget.
Community funding
Access to public grants in the southern African country, however, has created local responses to L&D that address both immediate and long-term needs and restore livelihoods.
FRLD’s direct access to climate-vulnerable countries and communities, through community-based planning, is essential to ensure that the Fund can address the needs of people facing the worst impacts of climate change, through rapid and flexible mechanisms that do not limit recovery options.
Stepping up to meet the FRLD through an ambitious and needs-based Resource Mobilization Strategy is the least rich countries can and should do. After all, it is an obligation arising from international duties to cooperate and prevent harm, and the obligation to provide reparation when harm occurs. Failure to do so will further undermine climate justice and the human rights of communities at the forefront of loss and damage.
