The humanitarian impact of the climate crisis is under the spotlight in Dubai. As part of the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), OCHA launched a Climate Action Account at COP28 to provide an additional avenue for financing humanitarian responses to climate-related disasters such as floods, droughts, storms and extreme heat, and building resilience.
Each year, between a quarter and a third of CERF funding already goes to extreme weather-related disasters.
UN Deputy emergency relief chief Joyce Msuya stressed the importance of ramping up this funding “as we move into a world in which climate change holds the sword of Damocles over an increasing number of people”.
According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), some 3.5 billion people, nearly half of humanity, live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change.
Trillions in damages
Extreme weather comes with a staggeringly high cost, as the UN weather agency WMO-led United in Science report published earlier this year showed. According to the report, between 1970 and 2021 some 12,000 reported disasters from weather, climate and water extremes caused $4.3 trillion in economic losses – most of them in developing countries.
To support vulnerable countries in protecting themselves from the worst consequences of climate disruptions, the loss and damage fund agreed at COP 27 in Sharm el-Sheikh last year and operationalised on the opening day of COP 28 has been hailed as a key climate justice instrument and the first major outcome of the gathering.
More than $650 million have reportedly been pledged so far and advocates for vulnerable communities present in Dubai have stressed the need to ensure that those most-affected benefit from the funding.
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