Nepal’s request for flood payout tests UN’s new climate-aid system
College of the Atlantic Professor Doreen Stabinsky tells The Economic Times that international climate aid must respond quickly when vulnerable nations face catastrophic losses.
“Unless we stop warming now, Nepals will keep happening" — Dr. Doreen Stabinsky.
By Lili Pike, Eric Roston and Azman Usmani | The Economic Times
Even as rescuers search for the thousands still missing in Nepal after catastrophic flooding that killed 1,250 people, the nation’s leaders face a second immense challenge — how to pay for recovery and rebuilding.
The tab is expected to come to at least $5 billion, an enormous sum for one of Asia’s poorest countries, and the fund it’s hoping to tap is new, underfunded and untested.
Nepal is seeking compensation for climate change-related damages from a United Nations fund set up to help developing nations deal with the worst impacts of global warming.
Offering “quick-release emergency” assistance is one of the roles that’s required, said Liane Schalatek, associate director at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, a Germany-based nonprofit. The devastation in Nepal “is clearly loss and damage,” she said.
Doreen Stabinsky, professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic, agreed: The fund “needs to develop a rapid response mechanism.”
Manjeet Dhakal, lead advisor to the chair of the UN’s Least Developed Countries, helped shape the fund and said it has an opportunity to establish a precedent with a swift response.
“If we go to December, it will be too late,” Dhakal said. “This is a real test for the loss and damage fund to establish its relevance when a vulnerable country faces catastrophic losses.”
Improving access to climate finance for vulnerable nations is a key agenda item for COP31, the next round of annual climate talks, taking place in Turkey in November. Negotiators will have to respond to what happened in Nepal, and “the response cannot be sympathy,” said Dhakal. “It has to be in terms of a strong commitment on emission reductions, with a bigger role by major fossil-fuel contributors, and closing the gap on climate finance.”
Ultimately, the best protection is to do more to stifle the cause of global warming, the burning of fossil fuels, said Stabinsky.