AS THE Cop27 global climate conference began its second week in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday, a new funding initiative to help poorer nations cope with the effects of climate change was launched by G7 nations.

Dubbed the Global Shield, the new mechanism is backed by the V20 group of climate-vulnerable nations and will initially receive more than $206 million (£173m) in funding.

At Cop27, the issue of loss and damage appeared on the agenda of a United Nations climate conference for the first time.

Climate-vulnerable countries say that wealthy industrialised nations should help pay for irreversible damage caused by floods, storms and rising seas, after decades of growing carbon emissions caused global temperatures to rise.

The Global Shield aims to provide climate-vulnerable countries with rapid access to insurance and disaster protection funding in the wake of flooding or drought.

It is being developed in collaboration with 58 climate-vulnerable economies to bring together climate risk finance and preparedness.

“Climate-related disasters have devastating impacts on poor people in particular,” said German Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development Svenja Schulze.

“They often do not have the means to protect themselves and their homes, fields or businesses against extreme weather and can lose their entire possessions when a disaster strikes.

“The Global Shield isn’t the one and only solution for loss and damage, certainly not,” she insisted, adding that additional funding will be needed to cover more countries.

A statement issued by Germany on Monday listed Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ghana, Pakistan, the Philippines and Senegal as some of the initial recipients of Global Shield packages, although 58 nations are in talks over the programme.

Ghana’s Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta called the initiative “a path-breaking effort” that would help protect communities when lives and livelihoods are lost.

But civil society groups expressed scepticism, warning that the programme should not be used to distract from the much broader effort to get big polluters to pay for the loss and damage they have already caused with their greenhouse gas emissions.

Teresa Anderson of ActionAid International said the scheme showed that the global community recognised the need to act on loss and damage, but she criticised it as a “distraction” from negotiations on a dedicated funding mechanism for climate damages.

“Everyone knows that insurance companies, by their very nature, are either reluctant to provide coverage or reluctant to pay out,” she said. “But when it comes to loss and damage, this is a matter of life and death.”