"Climate disaster aid scheme ‘Global Shield’ launched at COP27", 15 November 2022

A G7-led plan dubbed “Global Shield” to provide funding to countries suffering climate disasters has been launched at the United Nations COP27 summit, although some questioned the effectiveness of the planned scheme.

Coordinated by Group of Seven president Germany and the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) group of climate-vulnerable countries, the plan launched on Monday aims to rapidly provide prearranged insurance and disaster protection funding after events such as floods, droughts and hurricanes hit.

Backed by 170 million euros ($175m) in funding from Germany and 40 million euros ($41m) from other donors including Denmark and Ireland, the Global Shield will in the next few months develop support to be deployed in countries including Pakistan, Ghana, Fiji and Senegal when events occur.

Some countries and campaigners were cautious, however, concerned that the plan risked damaging efforts to secure a substantive deal on financial help for so-called “loss and damage” – the UN jargon for irreparable damage wrought by global warming...

Some research suggests that by 2030, vulnerable countries could face $580bn per year in climate-linked “loss and damage”...

Yet some vulnerable countries questioned the scheme’s focus on insurance, with insurance premiums adding another cost to cash-strapped countries that have low carbon emissions and contributed least to the causes of climate change.

“We are not yet persuaded, especially of the insurance elements,” Avinash Persaud, the special envoy on climate finance to Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, told the Reuters news agency.

“Using insurance is a method in which the victim pays, just in installments in the beginning,” he said, adding that loss and damage finance should be grant-based...“There’s an inherent injustice about them profiting off of our loss and damage,” he said...