When cyclones Idai and Kenneth smashed into Mozambique's coast in March 2019 they left a quarter of a million people homeless and put a further million in dire need of medicine, food and sanitation assistance.

The country asked for $3 billion to help rebuild infrastructure, secure supplies and handle outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

Instead it received a $120 million loan from the International Monetary Fund, and it was many months before more finance arrived.

"It was a fraction of what was needed," Daniel Ribeiro, technical coordinator at Justica Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique, told AFP.

While UN COP26 talks are struggling to rustle up promised funding to help vulnerable states prepare for the future impacts of the climate crisis, states already reeling from climate disaster are demanding separate, immediate money for "loss and damage".

"We're talking about social traumas that can't be fixed. The monetary side isn't possible," Ribeiro said.

"We cannot adapt to what is already happening."

When countries first signed up to the COP negotiations process more than 30 years ago, climate change was viewed as a future problem.

Then in 2009 richer nations -- historically responsible for the vast majority of plant-warming greenhouse gas emissions -- vowed to provide $100 billion annually by 2020.

The cash was earmarked for two tasks: mitigation, or helping countries to limit further warming by decarbonising their economies, and adaptation, helping them plan for higher seas and more intense downpours in the decades to come.

But today, with just 1.1C of warming so far, nations around the world are already being battered by extreme weather, with climate-linked disasters displacing tens of millions and inflicting hundreds of billions worth of damage.

Yet funding for loss and damage is not even on the official negotiation agenda in Glasgow.

Harjeet Singh, senior advisor at Climate Action Network International, said that loss and damage "cannot be a side issue".

"We are seeing impacts hit vulnerable communities in poor countries even as these climate talks continue," he told AFP.

"Small island states are calling for finance to help people recover from devastating storms and rising seas. It is time rich countries stopped the token references and hollow words and backed it up with real action and finance here in Glasgow."

- Touchy subject -

The annual $100 billion outlay promised for climate adaptation and mitigation will eventually be ready from 2022 or 2023 -- several years behind schedule.

But loss and damage will soon dwarf that figure.

Studies show that damage inflicted by climate change could top $500 billion a year by 2030.

An analysis by Christian Aid showed Monday that the 65 most vulnerable nations could see GDP drop 20 percent on average by 2050.

Led by Luxembourg and Jamaica, countries are pushing for the establishment at COP26 of a UN-governed funding facility that countries can turn to in the event of disaster.

And two island nations at risk of disappearing under rising seas have established a new UN commission, which could lead to the possibility of suing rich polluters.

The commission is organised by Antigua and Barbuda and Tuvalu, whose foreign minister went viral last week as he was pictured recording a video message for COP26 while standing knee deep in seawater.

Yamide Dagmet, director of climate negotiations at the World Resources Institute, said that loss and damage is a touchy subject for developed nations, whose emissions have driven the destruction.

"It's mainly the rich countries' fear or even paranoia of liability or compensation," she said.

"It's not about liability or compensation, it's about what will happen when these islands disappear."

- 'Protection money' -

A veteran climate talks observer told AFP that rich countries' inability to meet the $100 billion figure had led to a "trust deficit" at the Glasgow talks.

He said that figure was "not need-based, but political".

Abul Kalam Azad, a Bangladeshi negotiator, said that the failure to deliver climate finance had created a loss of confidence in rich countries that had "translated to loss and damage".

And there are even questions over the money that has been counted towards the $100 billion goal.

A 2020 assessment by Oxfam found that countries had been overreporting their contributions to climate finance, and that most was provided in the form of non-concessional loans.

Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's minister for economy and climate change, stressed last week that loss and damage finance must be "additional and separate" to the $100 billion.

Like Mozambique after cyclones Idai and Kenneth, many countries have been forced into accepting loans to help recover after extreme events.

Sayed-Khaiyum said that had left nations mired in climate debt.

"It is akin to forcing us to fork out protection money to the mafia of fossil fuel investors, who are responsible for inflicting the terror of this crisis upon us," he said.

Climate justice - and cash - shadow UN talks
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 8, 2021 - Developing nations accused richer countries of bargaining with the lives of billions of people on the climate crisis frontline Monday, blasting insufficient commitments as COP26 talks enter their final week with trust in short supply.

Countries remain starkly divided on key issues at the UN meeting, including how rapidly the world curbs carbon emissions and how to ramp up support for countries already battered by storms, floods and drought intensified by global heating.

After a week of headline announcements from host Britain on ending deforestation and phasing out coal, experts say the underlying COP26 negotiations have progressed little.

Countries are in Glasgow to work out how to implement the Paris Agreement's goals of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

And while recent announcements mean they have inched closer, many disputes remain unresolved.

These include pushing for more ambitious national carbon reduction plans, providing a long-promised $100 billion annually to developing nations and rules governing carbon markets.

"As the group least responsible for the climate crisis, but suffering most from its impact, we came to Glasgow with high expectations," said Sonam Phuntsho Wangdi of Bhutan, who heads the Least Developed Nations negotiating bloc.

He urged "strong commitments" from delegates at the UN talks, calling for faster emissions cuts.

"Any compromise on limiting temperature rise in line to 1.5C in this decade will mean negotiating the lives of billions in the most vulnerable countries like ours."

- 'All countries playing hardball' -

With scientists warning that countries have until the end of the decade to slash emissions almost in half, former US President Barack Obama attended the summit to tell delegates "time really is running out".

He said the Paris Agreement of 2015 had made important progress, but stressed that the deal was just the beginning.

"Most nations have failed to be as ambitious as they need to be," he said, echoing current President Joe Biden in saying it was "disturbing" that neither the leaders of China or Russia had travelled to Glasgow.

Earlier, COP26 President Alok Sharma said the first week of technical negotiations had "already concluded some important issues that will drive accelerated climate action".

But he said any preliminary conference decision text -- over which ministers will haggle when they arrive in Glasgow later this week -- had not yet materialised.

"We have a lot of work to do across all issues that remain," said Britain's chief negotiator Archie Young.

A senior diplomatic source told AFP that there was so much yet to be agreed that draft texts as they currently stood would be "illegible" for ministers.

"All countries are playing hardball," Stephen Leonard, climate law and policy specialist and veteran COP observer told AFP.

"The EU want the highest ambition possible. The African countries want as much finance for adaptation as possible. Australia and Japan want to be able to trade as much carbon as possible."

- Some progress -

COP26 is taking place a year late due to the Covid-19 pandemic and against a backdrop of ever-stronger drought, flooding and storms supercharged by higher temperatures that are battering countries across the globe.

Its first week saw around 100 nations commit to slash their emissions of methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas -- by at least 30 percent by 2030.

In another development likely to dent emissions, India -- the fourth largest polluter -- said it would achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.

Experts said these announcements, along with countries' latest emissions-cutting pledges, could have a real impact on future temperature rises.

But a UN assessment late last week found emissions were still on course to increase to 13.7 percent by 2030.

To limit warming to 1.5C, they must fall 45 percent this decade.

Tens of thousands of people thronged the streets of Glasgow on Saturday demanding faster action from governments after environmental activist Greta Thunberg branded the summit "a failure".

Dozens of nations have signed up to a COP26 initiative to end their use of coal -- the most polluting fossil fuel -- within decades, including major users South Korea and Vietnam.

But missing from the pact were the top consumers China, India and the United States.

Major exporter Australia, which also declined to join the initiative, said Monday it would continue to sell coal for "decades into the future".

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Expert warns on the perils of climate anxiety
Johannesburg (AFP) Nov 5, 2021
Climate change is harming people's mental wellbeing and the impact will only get worse, warned psychologist Garret Barnwell, who authored a report on the subject. Barnwell has for years worked with communities struggling with environmental problems, said people in poorer countries like South Africa where inequalities are vast are even more vulnerable to climate anxiety. His report, "The Psychological Mental Health Consequences of Climate Change in South Africa" was released in September. ... read more