BRUSSELS – The European Union will make a “substantial” financial contribution to a new international fund addressing the destruction caused by climate change, the EU’s executive commission said on Monday.
The world-first climate “loss and damage” fund is set to be launched during the United Nations COP28 climate summit, which will be held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
“The Commissioner is ready to announce substantial financial contribution by the EU and its member states to the loss & damage fund at COP28 in the context of an ambitious outcome at COP28,” the European Commission said in a statement, referring to EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
The EU did not specify the size of its planned contribution.
The EU also plans to commit funding at COP28 to help countries meet a global pledge to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, the Commission said.
Countries agreed at last year’s U.N. climate talks to launch the climate damage fund, a deal hailed as a breakthrough by vulnerable states that have long demanded funding from wealthy nations whose historical CO2 emissions caused climate change.
The UAE’s incoming COP28 President, Sultan Al Jaber, welcomed the EU move in a statement, after he met Hoekstra in Brussels on Monday.
The UAE is among a handful of high per-capita income countries that are not currently obliged to contribute to U.N. climate funds, but are facing pressure from European states to do so.
A spokesperson for the UAE’s COP28 Presidency did not immediately respond to a Reuters inquiry about whether the UAE will contribute to the fund.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett; additional reporting by Bart Meijer; editing by Gareth Jones and Mark Heinrich)
