The Australian government has committed an extra $50 million towards a global fund to deal with the loss and damage caused by climate change.

The government made the announcement at the United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan, which is trying to set a new global goal for funding.

"Australia will become the sixth largest contributor to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage," Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen said in his address at COP29 in Baku.

"This builds on our foundational $100 million contribution to the Pacific Resilience Facility, a Pacific-owned facility that will support locally-led, small-scale projects across the Blue Pacific Continent that respond to loss and damage."

Calls for more funding from rich countries

Australia is one of the key parties in Baku, co-chairing negotiations on how much rich countries — who are the biggest polluters — should pay poor countries to cope with climate change.

Its funding is being welcomed, although climate economists say rich countries will need to commit much more money to make a difference.

"Australia is playing a very positive role here in the negotiations," said Professor Frank Jotzo, the head of energy at the Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions at the Australian National University.

"Creating a fund for this purpose has always been a politically very fraught issue and the fact that money is slowly trickling in and that Australia is among the top 10 providers of funding into that facility globally is certainly a positive step and one that will be received positively in the Pacific region in particular," he said.

But Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation said that while Australia was taking a leading role on moving to renewable energy domestically, it was not reducing fossil fuel exports, a major contributor to global emissions.

"Australia playing at home is responsible, renewable and advancing real action, but Australia abroad, on a financial front, the money is not enough," Mr Sweeney said.

"On a fossil front and emissions front, the impact and the emissions are far too much. Australia is massive exporter of fossil fuels. Australian exports are driving climate chaos around the world.

"($50 million) is a gold coin per Australian. It's 2 bucks per Aussie and $50 million is nowhere near commensurate with the scale of the issue or what's needed abroad, particularly in the Pacific and First Nation Indigenous Australia."

Focus on the Pacific region

Australia has repeatedly emphasised the Pacific region at this climate summit, saying it should be a focus of international climate change negotiations, stressing its vulnerability in contrast to its tiny contribution to emissions.

The Pacific connection is a major part of Australia's bid to host the COP31 UN Climate Summit in two years' time.

South Australia has put itself forward, although Labor's pre-2022 election commitment was to co-host the summit with Pacific Island nations.

There is a problem, though, because Turkiye also wants to host COP31.

A summit host is usually chosen by consensus, but Australia failed over the weekend to convince Turkiye to drop its bid, so now there'll be a lengthy and uncertain process to determine which country will host.

"The idea is that these decisions are made unanimously by the UN members and so the situation where two countries essentially compete, and neither will yield is actually quite an unusual situation" Professor Jotzo said.

"So the expectation will still be that that can be somehow resolved and that a unanimous decision can be reached. How long that might take, I find very difficult to judge."