UN COP27 climate summit in Egypt adopts 'loss and damage' fund

The UN's COP27 climate summit has approved the creation of a special fund to cover the losses suffered by vulnerable nations hit by the impact of global warming.

Delegates applauded after the "loss and damage" fund was approved on Sunday by consensus following two weeks of contentious negotiations over demands by developing nations for rich polluters to compensate them for the destruction from weather extremes.

After tense negotiations that ran through the night, the Egyptian COP27 presidency released a text of the draft agreement - and simultaneously called a plenary session to gavel it through as a final, overarching agreement.

The session approved the text's provision to set up a "loss and damage" fund to help developing countries bear the immediate costs of climate-fuelled events such as storms and floods.

But immediately after, Switzerland called for a 30-minute suspension to allow time to study the new text. 

Negotiators earlier had expressed worry about changes being negotiated and written so late in the process. 

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'What went on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan'

"This is how a 30-year-old journey of ours has finally, we hope, found fruition today," said Pakistan Climate Minister Sherry Rehman, who often took the lead for the world's poorest nations. 

One-third of her nation submerged this summer by a devastating flood and she and other officials used the motto: "What went on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan."

Maldives Environment Minister Aminath Shauna told The AP news agency on Saturday "that means for countries like ours we will have the mosaic of solutions that we have been advocating for."

It's a reflection of what can be done when the poorest nations remain unified, said Alex Scott, a climate diplomacy expert at the think tank E3G.

"I think this is huge to have governments coming together to actually work out at least the first step of ... how to deal with the issue of loss and damage," Scott said. 

But like all climate financials, it is one thing to create a fund, it's another to get money flowing in and out, she said.

 The developed world still has not kept its 2009 pledge to spend $100 billion a year in other climate aid, designed to help poor nations develop green energy and adapt to future heating.

READ MORE: UN climate talks go into overtime as deadlock over fund creation persists