Climate finance and the loss and damage fund have been some of the most vigorously debated topics linked to climate change in recent years. Climate finance “refers to local, national or transnational financing—drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing—that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change” (United Nations Climate Change, 2023). It is by no means a new topic of discussion or a new idea as it has been part of the international climate discourse since the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris agreement. The climate finance movement has, over the past few decades been championed by those nations who have contributed the least to climate change, whilst experiencing its worst effects without possessing the necessary financial capital to bolster their resilience or rebuild in the wake of disasters (United Nations Climate Change, 2023).

Gender equality is a global issue. One that requires unique approaches which are carefully curated to fit the needs of the multiple peoples, cultures and geographies in which they are placed. There are, however, some common threads to gender equality, which include access to education, to healthcare, to a livelihood, to safety and to a certain degree of autonomy. Whilst great strides have been taken across the world to improve women and girl’s access to all these crucial aspects of life, climate change is threatening the advancement of equality and endangering the lives of women and girls across the globe.

Global poverty is on the rise. With the toxic mixture of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the ensuing economic instability, and the mushrooming cost of living crises, for people and communities around the world it is difficult to imagine how life could be any harder or how it could improve. The World Bank estimates that in 2020 the number of people living in extreme poverty rose by 70 million to more than 700 million. The bumpy road to post-pandemic recovery has brought little improvement as the present overall number is only expected to have dropped to around 685 million people. If this global turbulence were to continue then we can expect to still see 574 million people living in extreme poverty i.e. living on less than $2.15 a day, in 2030 (The World Bank, 2022)…