The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 closed Sunday with a breakthrough agreement to establish a loss and damage fund for communities living on the frontlines of climate disasters.

This decision follows three decades of climate-based negotiations. The agreement itself notes the “increasing urgency of enhancing efforts to avert, minimize and address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change”, particularly due to the impact of global warming on vulnerable populations and the ecosystems on which they depend.

The agreement also establishes a transitional committee to make recommendations for the operation of the new funding system. This committee will consist of 24 members, including required members from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, small island developing States and least developed countries.

Teresa Anderson, ActionAid International Global Lead on Climate Justice Teresa Anderson commented:

After so many years of calling for the UN to agree to establish a fund to help countries being pushed deeper into poverty, this is a real pinch-me moment. We can give credit to the collective pressure from civil society, combined with unprecedented unity among developing countries, for forcing rich countries to finally say “Yes – we are in this together.”

COP27 also generated a draft agreement on climate change which notably omitted a comprehensive plan to target fossil fuel emissions.