Eastern European States

Stance on 'Loss and Damage'

The EU sees an important role for climate finance in supporting developing countries, and has increased its totals from 14.5 in 2014 to 28.5 million euros in 2022. However, contributions from Eastern European States remain relatively low, and many of them are not formally re-quired by the UNFCCC to contribute to climate finance. As with other climate issues, the Russian war in Ukraine inevitably affects the Eastern European States’ position here. Regard-ing Loss and Damage, Estonia and Slovenia were the only states of the grouping pledging contributions to the Fund at COP28. Sources for the Fund remain contested, with Russia ex-pressing its willingness to use its frozen gold assets for the Fund, under the pretext of bridging the gap between North and South, but with a strategic objective of consolidating its position in the Global South, and preventing the use of frozen assets for rebuilding Ukraine as preferred by many EU members.

The ongoing Russian war in Ukraine has severe effects on the global climate problem. In the first two years, the war’s greenhouse gas emissions exceeded the individual emissions of 175 countries. The climate costs incurred by Russia are estimated at 32 billion US dollars, which will be included in the Council of Europe’s registry of damage. This exacerbates Rus-sia’s incentive to promote the use of its frozen assets for the Loss and Damage Fund, rather than for the fund compensating Ukraine.