No payout from the loss and damage fund has reached vulnerable nations. Cop31 must focus on delivering the money already promised
3-MIN READ3-MINRizwan BasirRizwan Basir, a sociologist, is a senior technical specialist at the Climate Resourcing and Coordination Centre (CRCC) in Islamabad, Pakistan. Published: 4:30pm, 10 Sep 2026Every climate summit now runs on the same illusion: the next pledge will be the one that finally saves us. It will not. The money the rich world has promised the poor world is not coming at anything like the scale advertised, and pretending otherwise has become the main business of climate diplomacy.
Late last month, a melting glacier gave way on the edge of the Himalayas and sent a wall of rock and water down the valley, burying whole settlements and leaving a country in national mourning.
Set that against how quickly everything else moves. In the same few weeks, the calendar filled with gatherings: a climate finance week in Istanbul, a week of chief-executive meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan, and a Pacific leaders’ summit in Palau. There is no shortage of mobilisation, only not the kind that moves money from one account to another.
A fund that cannot send US$20 million to a grieving country in the time it takes to hold three high-level meetings is not yet a fund. It is a promise with a letterhead.
