ISLAMABAD: As the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) opens for business at COP30 later this month with funds grossly insufficient to address damage caused by climate change, Pakistan is expected to submit proposals to the tune of $10-20 million to its 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 countries from the Global North.

Intended as a rapid response fund with its interim secretariat at the World Bank, the fund has failed to disburse even a single penny to affected countries, civil society leaders spearheading the ‘Fill the Fund’ campaign say.

Minister for Climate Change Musadik Malik 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.

After specific allocations for island states and least-developed nations, countries like Pakistan will have to fight for a share in around $100-150m out of $300m kitty

Speaking to Dawn, Mr 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 $100-150 million 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 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”.

“The core tension pits the developing world's urgent need for immediate, bureaucracy-free grants against the developed world's procedural insistence on pre-emptive governance frameworks,” said climate policy expert Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, who is an FRLD board member.

According to Mr Sheikh, this friction immediately manifested in the strategic deferral of the Direct Budget Support (DBS) access modality.

“Although established as a conceptual pathway for national governments seeking rapid funding, the Disaster Budget Support (DBS) mechanism remained non-operational until the subsequent B.8 meeting, pending the critical adoption of the necessary Modalities and the Risk Management Framework (RMF),” he said while sharing details about the meeting.

Mr Sheikh described the reliance on interim accreditation through existing multilateral entities as a preference for established financial governance models over immediate, sovereign control.

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.

“The board has approved an extremely traditional, multi-month project cycle that completely fails to address the fund's core purpose: getting money to disaster-hit countries within 24-48 hours,” said Brandon Wu, policy director at ActionAid US.

'Hypocrisy of the North'

Pakistan’s climate minister points to the hypocrisy of the Global North as daunting; they are trying to shift their burden to developing economies instead of paying for damages 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 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.

The fund is not on the COP30 formal negotiation agenda, but there will be a meeting of parties to receive a report from the FRLD board, said Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network, at a press conference held on Oct 9 after the board meeting.

She said there will be a meeting of parties to receive a report from the board and the parties can give further guidance to the board if they want to. She said it will be a good opportunity for the civil society to highlight that the purpose behind this fund was a rapid response to address the desperate situation where people are really suffering the impacts of climate disasters.

Musadik Malik 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.

Meanwhile, Ali Tauqeer Sheikh suggested Pakistan adopt a proactive approach to secure rapid access to FRLD funds. He said the country can formally designate the nationally designated authority for official communication and proposal submission and develop a national policy with the involvement of provinces.

“A nationally ratified policy along with aligned provincial strategies will demonstrate clear political commitment and adherence to FRLD principles,” he said, which will make it easier for Pakistan to secure funding from the FRLD board.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2025