COP27 puts climate compensation on agenda for first time
- COP27 President Sameh Shoukry says decision creates ‘an institutionally stable space’ for discussion of ‘the pressing issue of funding arrangements’
- Loss and damage discussions will not guarantee compensation or necessarily acknowledge liability, but intended to lead to a conclusive decision ‘no later than 2024’
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For more than a decade, wealthy nations have rejected official discussions on what is referred to as loss and damage, or funds they provide to help poor countries cope with the consequences of global warming.
COP27 President Sameh Shoukry told the plenary that opens this year’s two-week United Nations conference attended by more than 190 countries the decision created “an institutionally stable space” for discussion of “the pressing issue of funding arrangements”.
Inclusion of the agenda item “reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of the victims of climate induced disasters”, Shoukry added.
“We all owe a debt of gratitude to activists and civil society organisations who have persistently demanded the space to discuss funding for loss and damage,” he said to applause.
Shoukry also noted that rich nations had not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver US$100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He also lamented that most climate financing was based on loans.
“We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat,” he said, calling for solutions that “prove we are serious about not leaving anyone behind”.
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At COP26 last year in Glasgow, high-income nations blocked a proposal for a loss and damage financing body, instead supporting a three-year dialogue for funding discussions.
The loss and damage discussions now on the COP27 agenda will not guarantee compensation or necessarily acknowledge liability, but are intended to lead to a conclusive decision “no later than 2024”, Shoukry said.
The issue could generate even more tension than at previous conferences this year as the Ukraine war, a surge in energy prices and the risk of economic recession have at once added to governments’ reluctance to promise funds and poor nations’ need for them.
Negotiations on Saturday night before the agenda’s adoption “were extremely challenging”, said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at the non-profit Climate Action Network International. “Rich countries in the first place never wanted loss and damage to be on the agenda.”
Some criticised the dismissive language on liability, but although weaker than hoped, getting the issue formally on the agenda will oblige wealthier nations to engage on the topic.
“They rightly expect more solidarity from the rich countries, and Germany is ready for this, both in climate financing and in dealing with damage and losses,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement.
Germany wants to launch a “protective shield against climate risks” at the conference, an initiative it has been working on with vulnerable states such as Bangladesh and Ghana.
Bangladeshi-based environmental research body, the International Centre for Climate Change and Development said it was “good news” loss and damage was officially on the agenda.
“Now the real work begins to make finance a reality,” said Salmeel Huq, director of the centre.
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After the first day of talks, more than 120 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday.
The most conspicuous no-show will be China’s Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress.
US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change.
Cooperation between the US and China – the world’s two largest economies and carbon polluters – has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Brazil’s Lula hopes to unite rainforest nations, tap funding at COP27
A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive.
One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro.
