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Governments meet in Egypt this week trying to break deadlock on a new "loss and damage" fund to help vulnerable people cope with off-the-chart impacts of climate change such as crop failures, storms or desertification.

Last year, one of the crowning achievements of the U.N. climate talks in Egypt, known as COP27, was an agreement to set up a loss and damage fund. The fund is due to be launched at the COP28 conference in Dubai in less than two months.

But the so-called "transitional committee" will have a long haul at its fourth meeting (TC4) on October 17-20 in Aswan, Egypt – the final one scheduled before COP28.

An advance U.N. note for the talks lists disagreements on basic building blocks such as "sources of funding", "scope and structure of the fund", the location of a new secretariat, and even the "name of the fund".

Among disputes is whether the new fund’s secretariat will be housed under the World Bank, as favoured by developed nations led by the United States and the European Union, who have the biggest say at the bank.

By contrast, developing nations want a new, independent entity, writes Brandon Wu, director of policy and campaigns at ActionAid USA. That would give emerging economies more influence and easier access. 

"TC4 has a golden opportunity to put this basic principle of justice into practice, and it needs to get it right," he writes.

Loss and damage covers impacts that cannot be fixed by cutting emissions or by adapting to a changing climate.

Faced with a creeping rise in sea level, for instance, people on a low-lying coral atoll can build walls, but at some point the sea may swamp the entire island. How can a fund help with the anguish of losing ancestral homelands, or forced migration to a new country?

Since 1991, developing nations have been seeking loss and damage funding. So far, only a few nations, including Denmark, Germany and Canada, have promised cash for the new fund.

Elsewhere, money is emerging as a big factor in a surge of climate litigation worldwide, our correspondents Joanna Gill and Jack Graham report. 

That ranges from money to cover the costs of lawsuits - which can sometimes be bank-breaking for environmental activists - to investors looking to make a profit from a cut of climate damages awarded to their clients.

Since 2015, the cumulative number of climate lawsuits globally has more than doubled to nearly 2,200, according to a database collected by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at New York's Columbia University.

"We had some rich supporters giving us money every month, we did fundraisers, concerts. It was a huge undertaking," said Serge de Gheldere, a Belgian citizen trying to force the government to do more to cut emissions.

The case alone had cost his group almost 2 million euros ($2.11 million) by 2022.

Catch our panel discussion on the issue at this week’s Trust Conference, if you’re in London.

How to phase out fossil fuels is a major focus of climate diplomacy, often overshadowing the harm they cause in polluting air, water and land.

In Nigeria in 1994, primary school teacher Aina Akinsotho noticed that the water in her school well in Lagos was contaminated with oil.

Nearly 30 years later, an analysis commissioned by Context of water samples from wells in five different homes in the area shows water sources are still polluted from leaking pipelines.

Residents of Baruwa district are suffering health effects and are struggling with the high costs of buying bottled drinking water, our correspondent Bukola Adebayo reports. 

"Once you open the taps, your eyes will start watering, and you feel like you're choking after some time," said Temi Adebowale, 32, who lives in one of the houses where the water samples were taken.

Please get in touch - have a great week,

Alister