Denmark has become the first fully-fledged country to pledge funds to developing countries specifically for “tab og skader”, which translates to “loss and damage”.
The Nordic nation committed 100 million DKK ($13m) to build resilience and help climate victims recover during a ministerial meeting on the sideline of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
While the amount pledged is relatively small compared to mitigation and adaptation finance, the move breaks a taboo among rich countries over giving money to address the unavoidable losses and damages already caused by climate change.
Announcing the funds, Denmark’s development minister Flemming Møller Mortensen said: “I saw for myself in Bangladesh this spring that the consequences of climate change need increased focus.”
“It is grossly unfair that the world’s poorest should suffer the most from the consequences of climate change, to which they have contributed the least. With this new agreement, we are putting action behind words,” he continued.
Mattias Söderberg, chief advisor at Danish Church Aid, told Climate Home the initiative is “good climate news”.
“I hope it will have effect both for the people on the ground who already are facing climate induced loss and damage, and for negotiations between rich and poor countries, where the debate about loss and damage for far to long has been full of conflict,” he added.
The commitment by Denmark to mobilise funds for loss and damage is “a step in the right direction”, he added. The move “hopefully can inspire other countries to follow,” Söderberg said.
During last year’s Cop26, the G77, a block of more than 130 developing countries, made a push to create a finance facilty to support victims of climate-related disasters. The initiative was blocked by the EU and the US.
Under the Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to address the “loss and damage associated with climate change impacts”. But rich countries have fiercely resisted providing specific finance for this, as they do not want to accept liability and risk being sued by climate vulnerable nations.
In a statement, the Danish foreign ministry said another 32.5m DKK ($4m) will go towards the Danish foreign ministry’s “strategic partnerships with civil society, which work with climate-related loss and damage with a special focus on the Sahel region”, which spans North Africa’s Sahara desert.
