Nepal floods should spur climate action, UN fund chief says

Nepal's flood disaster and Europe's wildfires should push governments to focus again on the cost of climate change, Green Climate Fund executive director Mafalda Duarte said on Wednesday.

Duarte, who heads the UN-backed fund, said many countries do not understand that the world faces climate tipping points from which it cannot return. She said climate change was falling down global priorities as conflicts and other shocks took attention.

The Green Climate Fund was set up by the United Nations to help developing countries deal with climate impacts. It has invested $19 billion across 134 developing countries. The United States withdrew from the fund in January, and Britain halved its contribution in May.

Duarte was in Palau for the annual summit of Pacific island leaders, whose governments regard climate change as their biggest security threat. Pacific governments reacted with dismay on Wednesday to a UN report finding that the world would fail to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The fund is increasing its work on adaptation in the Pacific and has doubled its investment in the region in three years to $1 billion. Duarte acknowledged frustration among small countries over access to the fund, but said the process had accelerated to an average of nine months.

Marshall Islands climate envoy Tina Stege, the Pacific's envoy for COP31, said urgent and concrete progress was needed to improve access to climate finance for small island states. She said a separate UN loss and damage fund agreed four years ago to help developing nations respond to climate disasters was “an empty bucket”.