SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt: Pakistan, Ghana and Bangladesh will be among the first recipients of funding from a G7 ‘Global Shield’ initiative to provide funding to countries suffering climate disasters, the programme announced on Monday at the COP27 summit in Egypt.

The Global Shield, coordinated by G7 president Germany, aims to provide rapid access for climate-vulnerable countries to insurance and disaster protection funding after floods or drought. It is being developed in collaboration with the ‘V20’ group of 58 climate vulnerable economies.

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.

Those packages would be developed in the coming months, Germany said.

A scheme to give speedy financial support to communities battered by climate disasters was launched Monday by a group of rich and developing nations at the UN COP27 summit in Egypt.

The “Global Shield against Climate Risks” comes as many of the most vulnerable nations are also demanding wider compensation for the “loss and damage” they have already suffered from a heating planet.

The initiative, backed by the G7 and launched with initial funding of more than $200 million, aims to provide “pre-arranged financial support designed to be quickly deployed in times of climate disasters”.

The Global Shield project “is long overdue”, said Ken Ofori-Atta, Ghana’s finance minister and chair of the V20 group of nations most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

“It has never been a question of who pays for loss and damage, because we are paying for it,” he said in recorded remarks at the summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.

“Our economies pay for it in lost growth prospects, our enterprises pay for it in business disruption, and our communities pay for it in lives and livelihoods lost.”

He said he hoped the project would help the most vulnerable communities but also aid wider understanding of the challenges emerging economies face as they are being hammered by climate-induced floods, heatwaves or droughts.

A first group of nations that will benefit from the scheme includes Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Fiji, Ghana, Pakistan, the Philippines and Senegal.