By Gerrino J. Saunders
Journal Staff Writer

The efforts of Prime Minister Philip Davis and other Caribbean leaders have paid off as countries
attending COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates agreed to a new Loss and Damage Fund.
This has been an issue that Mr. Davis have been championing over for the past two years since
taking office.
The operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund is a monumental step towards delivering
meaningful support for the world’s most vulnerable countries that are affected by the impacts of
climate change. The fund will help compensate countries struggling to cope with loss and
damage caused by hurricanes, floods and other devastating natural disasters.
Locally, the announcement was made by Keishla Adderly, acting press secretary in the Office of
the Prime Minister, at the weekly press briefing just hours after the successful agreement. She
shared brief comments by Prime Minister Davis who is in Dubai for COP28.
He said, “We trust that this promise will turn into reality as the days go on with our negotiations
and discussions with world leaders who are here with us. The key here is to ensure that the
industrialized world recognize their responsibility to Small Island Developing States like ours.
Recognize that they have a moral obligation and we are trying to convert that moral obligation
into a legal and enforceable obligation to provide funding for loss and damage as a result of
hurricane and other devastating events related to climate change, and that is where we are
headed.
“We will continue our efforts here and to ensure that you are not left behind in any of these
efforts to ensure that we in The Bahamas will preserve our lives.”
Reports out of the Dubai are that some countries began to make financial contributions to the
fund right away.
The Sultan al-Jaber, president of the COP28 Climate Conference hailed “the first decision to be
adopted on day one of any COP.” His country, the United Arab Emirates, committed $100
million to the fund. Other countries also made large commitments, including Germany, also at
$100 million.

Developing nations had long sought to address the problem of inadequate funding for responding
to climate disasters caused by climate change, which hit them especially hard, and for which they
have little responsibility — industrialized countries have spewed out carbon emissions that are
trapping heat in the atmosphere.