The cruelest irony of climate change is that those who did least to cause it are paying the highest price. Countries like Pakistan, Mozambique and the Philippines are battered by floods, cyclones and heatwaves, while the biggest polluters debate semantics and focus primarily on curbing future emissions rather than helping those already paying the cost of a crisis they did not create.

Increasingly, poorer nations are demanding recognition that the world's richest countries owe them a climate debt. Funding to help vulnerable nations adapt is not charity, it is a form of reparation for centuries of emissions. The creation of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP28 in 2023 marked a symbolic victory. For the first time, the principle that polluters should pay received formal recognition. Yet, nearly two years later, as COP30 unfolds in Brazil, that victory looks hollow. The fund, housed at the World Bank, has raised only a few hundred million dollars, a tiny fraction of........

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