Environmental group Greenpeace urged world leaders taking part in the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil to take a strong stance in making fossil fuel companies pay for climate damages.
The call was made as the Philippines is reeling from two devastating typhoons this month-‘Tino’ (international code name Kalmaegi) and ‘Uwan’ (Fung-Wong).
Both successive natural hazards have left a path of deaths and destructions, rendering thousands homeless, destroying millions worth of crops, and causing damage to fisheries and livestock.
‘COP30 is a chance for Filipinos to obtain justice, and the window is closing fast. It must give Filipinos a fighting chance to survive the climate crisis with dignity and peace of mind. We deserve a future where safety and security is a way of life-not one where a wave of casualties and destruction is just another Monday morning,’ said Greenpeace Philippines Campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin.
Incidentally, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) has launched its first call for funding requests for the Barbados Implementation Modalities.
This marks the Fund’s transition to active operationalization, enabling it to initiate its first interventions to respond to climate-induced loss and damage for developing countries.
The BIM has been allocated an initial $250 million to support response efforts in developing countries facing economic and non-economic loss and damage from slow-onset and extreme climate-induced events.
Greenpeace and other environmental groups have been calling for climate justice and has been demanding that polluters pay for the damage brought about by climate change-triggered extreme events to vulnerable countries, including the Philippines.
The launch of the call establishes the process through which countries can access funding from the FRLD.
In addition to offering a platform for stakeholders to engage in support of the FRLD, the launch event raised awareness about the BIM and clarified the call for funding requests’ procedures, timelines and criteria. The call will be opened for a period of six months from December 15.
‘If these global negotiations don’t deliver on making climate polluters pay, we can expect more Uwans and Tinos to pummel those who are still trying to recover from past extreme weather events. The science is clear: fossil fuel companies are raking in billions while supercharging storms that dig Filipinos into their graves,’ Benosa-Llorin said.
Super Typhoon Uwan is the Philippines’ 21st storm in 2025, with more than a million have been evacuated. Typhoon-strength winds were already battering parts of the country before the storm arrived.
A week before Uwan, Typhoon Tino left a heavy toll in the Visayas and parts of Luzon-at least 224 dead and over 300,000 people evacuated, according to official tallies.
Uwan triggered the country’s highest wind signals and severe coastal warnings within days of Tino’s floods. Transport and power disruptions were widespread as authorities raced to move people out of danger.
‘These back-to-back events show how quickly compounding risks escalate for already-hit communities. They result in lost lives and are driving up socioeconomic losses,’ Benosa-Llorin pointed out.
‘Agriculture and fisheries suffer destroyed harvests and reduced catch, tourism revenues decline, and local livelihoods were disrupted. These growing economic costs fall on communities, a burden that they should not be shouldering. Robust climate finance mechanisms must be set in motion to capacitate survivors to recover and live with dignity,’ she added.
With the ongoing COP30, Greenpeace reiterated urgent demands for rich nations to fill the Loss and Damage Fund with grant-based finance that reaches communities fast.
‘We also urge Parties to seek other sources of loss-and-damage funding, such as from the world’s carbon majors-companies that continue to pollute despite decades of knowledge about their climate harms,’ she said.
‘Nationally, the government must prioritize the Clima Bill to make the biggest polluters pay, protect and audit all climate and flood-control funds to prevent plunder, prosecute the corrupt, and fast-track community-led resilience-from mangrove and reef protection to early-warning and safe evacuation-while stopping any new fossil fuel expansion,’ she pointed out.
Clima bill, or the proposed Climate Accountability Act (House Bill 9609), is a proposed law that seeks to hold corporations accountable for their role in the climate crisis
‘We call on our government and on governments from around the world, especially the global north: Choose people over profit. Make polluters pay,’ Benosa-Llorin said.