NEW DELHI — Finance ministers from the G20 economies reached a tentative consensus late Thursday on the structure of a $100-billion climate adaptation facility, concluding two days of negotiations that officials described as “the most technical and the least theatrical” of the summit cycle.
The agreed framework establishes the fund as an independent facility with its own board, domiciled in a yet-to-be-decided host country, with voting weighted toward contributing nations but a guaranteed one-third of board seats for climate-vulnerable states — a formula India’s delegation is widely credited with brokering.
What the framework deliberately does not settle is the burden-sharing formula: how much each economy contributes, and in what mix of grants, guarantees and concessional lending. That question, negotiators said, has been “elevated” — diplomatic shorthand for kicked upward to the leaders’ summit in November.
Civil-society observers were cautiously positive. “The architecture is better than we feared and weaker than we need,” said one adaptation-finance researcher tracking the talks. “A fund without a funding plan is a building without a foundation — but at least there is now a building.”
The communiqué also commits members to a common reporting standard for fossil-fuel subsidies by 2028, a clause that survived despite late objections. Ministers dispersed shortly before midnight; the sherpas, as always, stayed behind.
