Bhutan stood in solidarity with 196 countries at the opening of COP 28 in Dubai, UAE today highlighting the sense of urgency and message of hope for climate action. During the plenary session of COP28, Bhutan made an intervention calling for an urgent dialogue on mountain and climate change to be launched here at COP28. Bhutan reiterated our submissions and requests made during numerous similar consultations in previous COPs on the issue of the mountain ecosystem and its inclusion in the process.

In the light of adequate scientific evidence, Bhutan submitted the extreme vulnerability of the mountain ecosystem to the dangerous threat of climate change. The increasing rate of glacier retreats is poised to impact the lives and livelihoods of millions of people living in mountains and the downstream. The impacts of melting glaciers are limited to the mountainous regions and downstream regions. Rapid ice sheet melt could lead to catastrophic sea level rise even before the end of the century. The IPCC report confirmed that combined ice sheet and glacier mass loss contributed to 42% of this global mean sea level rise from 2006 to 2018. This is touted to result in the extinction of small islands and mountain habitats.

Despite being the least contributor to climate change but ironically hit the hardest with its impacts, Bhutan has remained steadfast within the facet of environment and climate leadership. For instance, Bhutan has communicated an ambitious revised NDC and reaffirmed to remain Carbon Neutral despite the development challenges we face, and our ask for this is only reasonable.

During the plenary session of COP and CMA, parties made a significant decision by adopting the operationalization of fund and funding arrangements for Loss and Demages. Bestriding on the moment, UAE made a commitment to substantial investment of $100 million towards the L&D fund, followed by Germany ($100m), EU-excluding Germany ($145.6m), Japan(10m) United Kingdom $50m for fund and $25m for funding arrangements, United States ($17.5m for fund; $4.5m for Pacific Resilience Facility; and $2.5m Santiago Network).

The L&D fund was established at COP27 at Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, last year.

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