JOB VACANCY SOTO PAK TIMBUL GAJI MENARIK

 n August, Pakistan was  and left the inundated country with (£27bn). Within a month, he high rainfall was "likely increased" by climate change.

The link between greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather events already happening today and diverting funds away from other critical areas, such as healthcare and education.

What's more, these impacts are only set to get worse. If global temperatures were to rise by 2.9C, the average GDP of the world's 65 most climate-vulnerable countries 

As such climate threats become a larger part of our lives, US, provided the first assessment of countries' liability in fuelling the climate crisis. It concluded that emissions from the USTipping Point UK, a non-profit working on climate justice. The fair share could be calculated based on their historical and ongoing contribution to global emissions, she says.

Having the fund as part of the UNFCCC process, rather than an external body, would help it to be "accountable and transparent" and ensure it is a "collective commitment to reach an agreed-upon sum", adds DeCoste. Such a fund should not be based on voluntary commitments made only by the countries that are more willing to pay, she says.Transport and Environment concluded that Europe's five biggest oil majors are responsible for some $13tn (£11.5tn) of damage in the past 30 years, including pollution, deteriorating public health and carbon emissions. These companies make enormous profits from extracting and selling fossil fuels, which hacountries rebuild and recover from disasters.

"[A climate damages tax] is a way of establishing accountability and responsibility," says DeCoste. It opens up a conversation about how polluters can provide vulnerable countries with enough funding to adapt to the climate threats they are facing, she says.  

Some governments today droughts and floods. However, a major limitation of this in the long run is that windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies are only intended to be temporary. "We need to ensure fossil fuel companies are taxed effectively and consistently all the time, not just with one-off windfall taxes," says Olivia Hanks, climate justice lead at the faith group Quakers in Britain.

However, since governments also need to set a timeline for rapid phaseout of coal, oil and gas, fossil fuel taxes could only fund climate losses and damages temporarily, says Hanks – meaning other sources of finance will also be needed to pay for climate damages. cost the world more than $1.9tn (£1.6tn) in climate damages between 1990 and 2014. The next four largest emitters – China, Russia, India and Brazil – caused a further $4.1tn (£3.6tn) in global economic losses in the same time period. Combined, these losses are equivalent to around 11% of yearly global GDP.

"We show that there is a scientific basis for [climate] liability claims," says Justin Mankin, co-author of the study and assistant professor of geography at Dartmouth College. "The science shows that if one country can have detectable damages; one country's foregoing [of] emissions can have detectable benefits. That's really essential… it overturns this narrative of 'what can one country do?'"the countries and companies responsible for the pollution in the first place should be the ones footing bill.

So what if we lived in a world where polluters really did pay for the climate damage they have caused? How much would they need to cough up, and would these payouts signal the end of the fossil fuel industry? Would this funding ever be able to alleviate the harm done? And could it mean the world's most vulnerable countries recover from climate disasters and adapt to looming threats?