As the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) opens for business at COP30 later this month with money grossly insufficient to address damage caused by climate change, Pakistan is expected to submit proposals to the tune of $10-20 million to the FRLD board despite reservations.

Three years after its operationalisation at COP27 in Egypt, the fund has about $300 million in total and pledges of $700m by the Global North countries. Intended as a rapid response fund, the fund, with its interim secretariat based in the World Bank, has failed to disburse even a single penny to the affected countries, said civil society leaders spearheading the ‘Fill the Fund’ campaign.

Climate minister Musadik Malik also confirmed that Pakistan did not receive a single dollar from the loss and damage fund despite the catastrophic losses it has faced due to global warming.

Speaking to Dawn, Malik said the fund decided to operationalise $250m for its call for proposals at COP30 in Belem and 50 per cent of this amount was exclusive to Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

“This means about $100-150m is set aside for the rest of the world, including Pakistan,” he said, adding the government was working on some projects in light of this call for proposals.

He said it was too early to share details as these ideas required time to shape up, adding that proposals worth up to $20m were under consideration.

The call for proposals came after the FRLD’s seventh board meeting (B7) in Manila last month, in which the board approved interim rules for its operationalisation while deferring some key decisions, leaving the fund reliant on insufficient resources.

North-South ideological divergence

Like all other climate negotiations, the meeting was fundamentally defined by a North-South ideological “divergence over the speed and mechanism of financial disbursements”.

One of the key criticisms against the fund is its “slow, bureaucratic design and complex rules for access”, which are completely at odds with the need for immediate relief, according to ‘Fill the Fund’ campaigners.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s climate minister said the hypocrisy of the Global North is daunting, as they are trying to shift their burden to the developing economies instead of paying for the damage they caused to the climate during their development.

It is very bizarre how these negotiations work out, he said while speaking about bureaucratic procedures that mar the climate talks.

Speaking about divergence between the North and the South, he said the developed world is seeking compliance from the developing states, while the latter are asking for a resource pool, technology and finance.

“But commitments are not worth the piece of paper on which they are published unless they are resourced… We say put your money where your mouth is because you have made this money by consuming the climate over the 100s of years,” the minister said.

Musadik pointed out that excessive bureaucracy and hypocrisy evident at climate talks defeat the purpose of such a rapid response fund. However, he said, Pakistan will cash in on all opportunities since its needs are dire.

At the UN climate conference, the country will continue to seek its rightful share in climate funds, highlight western hypocrisy, fight against red tape and make a case for ease of allocation and drawdowns from the loss and damage fund.