Evidence is mounting that global warming was a factor in last month’s devastating flood in Nepal. More than 1,400 people were killed and some 6,000 are missing after the flood wiped out entire villages when a glacier collapsed on 26 August. A rapid science review released last week concludes that exceptionally higher than average temperatures during July and August contributed to destabilizing an already geologically vulnerable region (see go.nature.com/4xztmgu).

Climate loss-and-damage funding: how to get money to where it’s needed fast

A representative of Nepal’s government is reported to have said that it will cite the study in an application for funding from the special United Nations Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage from extreme weather linked to anthropogenic climate change. Nepal has applied for US$20 million, the maximum amount available, to help pay for some of the costs of immediate recovery and to help prepare for future climate events.

However, the country joins another 119 that are waiting for a decision from the fund to pay for climate losses and damages. Applications began to be accepted at the end of 2025. So far, four have been considered by the fund’s board at its last meeting in July, but no decision has been made. The next meeting is not until December. Such delays are not acceptable and go against what this fund is intended to do: provide fast funding to deal with the aftermath of a climate-related disaster or emergency. Those board members calling for an urgent interim meeting are right to do so.

The fund’s donors, mostly rich countries, must review the practicalities of how claims should be evaluated and money disbursed in a timely way. The applications that have been made — totalling $2.8 billion — far exceed the $250-million pot that is available, although more than $800 million had been pledged as of March.

The loss and damage fund was established in 2022, and was spearheaded by the late Saleemul Huq, a climate scientist from Bangladesh. It resulted from a decades-long effort by some of the lowest-income countries to achieve a degree of climate justice: that the rich nations responsible for the majority of emissions causing anthropogenic climate change would fund poorer ones so that they could deal with the consequences. It would not be aid, but based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle.

It joins a suite of larger climate funds, but was intended to be very different. The largest such fund is the Green Climate Fund, based in Incheon, South Korea, which supports countries aiming to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build climate-resilient infrastructure. It provides grants and loans, and the average length of time to approve a project is two years; one-fifth of projects take between three and five years to gain approval.

The UN’s fund for loss and damage, by contrast, was established to support countries’ immediate needs when climate disasters strike. It would provide grants, not loans, and on a fast timescale. Most of its applications are from some of the poorest countries in Africa and Asia, including small island states, where average household incomes are between $100 and $400 a month. In many cases, governments of such countries lack the cash to react quickly when extreme weather strikes, so they find it difficult to fund actions such as clearing debris, moving people into secure shelters, providing clean water and organizing schooling.

‘Loss and damage’ – the most controversial words in climate finance today

The fund for climate loss and damage might be new, but the idea of rapid grants in an emergency isn’t. As just one example, the UN has a Central Emergency Response Fund, which is reviewing a $2.5-million application from Nepal.

Economist Richard Jolly, co-director of a UN history project that charted the organization’s contributions to economic development, told Nature back in 2023 that the UN has a record of incubating and developing good ideas, but is less good at learning lessons from its own experiences. One such lesson from the current situation is that it shouldn’t take six months to process a grant application from a country where whole villages have been wiped out by flooding — and where the sum of money requested is within the fund’s means.

Nepal and the other countries in need of support are not asking for the earth. What they need is a fund that efficiently distributes money that has already been allocated to providing relief in exactly these situations.