CONFLICT-RAVAGED Yemen is unlikely to receive any support from the new climate fund agreed at Cop27, according to aid agencies.

The United Nations climate conference in Egypt, which ended on Sunday, agreed to set up a new fund to help poor, vulnerable countries hit hard by climate change.

But although Yemen is one of the world’s poorest countries  and vulnerable to climate change impacts, it does not have the means to access climate finance.

It is one of a number of countries that are unlikely to receive funds because they lack stable governments, said UN Secretary-General Youth Advisory Group chairwoman Nisreen el-Saim.

“They don’t have institutions in order to have climate finance,” she said.

“You have to have strong institutions, which don’t exist in many countries.”

International Committee for the Red Cross director-general Robert Mardini warned that “close to zero amount of climate finance” is reaching conflict-affected nations “because decision makers who decide to allocate those funds consider that it is too risky to invest” there.

Mr Mardini added that the worst is yet to come for Yemenis as food shortages worsen.

Decision-makers “need to reconsider the risk appetite, because there are also big risks in not investing in these countries and huge [human] costs that should be avoided,” he said.

Yemen has been torn by an eight-year war between a Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The conflict has devastated the country, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. As well as the more than 150,000 people who have been killed, including over 14,500 civilians, climate change and the effects of the conflict have left some 19 million people unable to find enough food.

The UN food agency reports that about 161,000 already live in famine conditions.

Children and women are the most affected, with 1.3 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and 2.2 million children under five acutely malnourished.

Yemen has also suffered droughts, soil erosion and worsening floods every year. According to the UN agriculture agency, this year’s rainfall was 45 per cent higher than in 2021.

At least 72 people were killed by flooding this year, with some 74,000 families in 19 of the 22 provinces affected.