Poor nations demand urgent climate funding at COP31

ANTALYA, Nov 13: Urgent pleas for cash from poor nations most exposed to the kind of climate-related disasters that have marked this year risk meeting a sluggish response at Turkey's COP31 talks as Western governments put national security and living costs first.

"Like many small island developing states, we remain in a perpetual climate disaster recovery mode," Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale told the conference. "We cannot build resilience while our fiscal space erodes."

Even when money is available, technical hurdles set by lenders can stretch the administrative capacity of small states.�"REUTERS