The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage is a global financing mechanism meant to help developing countries cope with climate harm they cannot avoid through emissions cuts or adaptation measures. It covers both sudden disasters, such as floods and cyclones, and slow moving damage like sea level rise or glacier loss.
Unlike insurance, it does not promise automatic payouts when a disaster hits a certain size. Instead, it operates through country led funding requests that a secretariat reviews and a board approves, similar in structure to other UN climate funds like the Green Climate Fund or Adaptation Fund. It is currently hosted on an interim basis by the World Bank, with its own independent secretariat and executive director.
The idea behind it is straightforward even if the mechanics are complicated: those who contributed least to global warming should not be left alone to pay for its consequences. https://english.nepalnews.com/s/explainers/bhote-koshi-flood-can-nepal-get-compensation-from-the-un-backed-loss-and-damage-fund/
Pathways: Who signed the letters and who has been speaking publicly about the claim? https://english
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The fund was agreed in principle at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh in November 2022, a moment widely described as a breakthrough after roughly three decades of developing countries pushing for exactly this kind of mechanism. Wealthy nations had long resisted the idea, worried that creating such a fund would be read as an admission of legal liability for climate damage.
It took another year of negotiation through a Transitional Committee before COP28 in Dubai in 2023 produced an agreement on how the fund would actually be structured, governed and staffed. The board held its first meetings through 2024, appointed Ibrahima Cheikh Diong as its inaugural executive director for a four year term beginning that November, and only began accepting funding requests from countries in December 2025. In effect, three years passed between the fund being announced and its first call for applications actually opening. https://english.nepalnews.com/s/explainers/bhote-koshi-flood-can-nepal-get-compensation-from-the-un-backed-loss-and-damage-fund/
It took another year of negotiation through a Transitional Committee before COP28 in Dubai in 2023 produced an agreement on how the fund would actually be structured, governed and staffed. The board held its first meetings through 2024, appointed Ibrahima Cheikh Diong as its inaugural executive director for a four year term beginning that November, and only began accepting funding requests from countries in December 2025. In effect, three years passed between the fund being announced and its first call for applications actually opening. https://english.nepalnews.com/s/explainers/bhote-koshi-flood-can-nepal-get-compensation-from-the-un-backed-loss-and-damage-fund/
