Historic agreement at COP27: rich countries will pay poor countries for climate change damages

The Climate Summit ends with the approval of the creation of a fund to finance losses and damages in developing countries due to global warming

The United Nations Climate Change Conference has adopted on Sunday a resolution that provides for the creation of a new fund to finance the climate damage already suffered by the countries most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, the greatest victory of a very hard summit that, however, has fallen short when it comes to redefining a plan for the reduction of the use of fossil fuels, beyond the guidelines followed in previous summits.

In any case, the creation of the fund, described as historic, has been adopted by consensus in the plenary assembly that ended the climate conference in Egypt and has been received by a resounding applause from all the representatives in the stalls.

Delegates agreed to establish financing mechanisms for loss and damage in the first minutes of a meeting that was convened after 04.00 hours in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh, but continued to deliberate on other issues such as the transition away from fuels and control the emission of greenhouse gases.

As reflected in the text, countries have established a consensus regarding the “immediate need” to provide “new, additional, predictable and adequate” financial resources to help developing countries that are in a vulnerable position with respect to the “economic and non-economic” impacts of climate change.

In this regard, reference is made to forced displacement and the effects on cultural heritage, mobility and life, as well as the livelihoods of communities, and therefore underline the importance of an “effective and adequate” response to loss and damage.

The countries have agreed that those nations that emit the most emissions can also contribute to the fund, as is the case with China and India. That was precisely one of the aspects that almost blew up the summit on Saturday morning, along with the fact that the goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to 1.5ºC was about to fall. These issues were marked as red lines for the European Union that on Saturday morning announced that it was willing to leave Egypt without an agreement because it would not be “complicit” in a bad deal.

However, there are many details to be specified such as the amount allocated to this fund and how the payment of the losses and damages caused will be carried out.

Finally, the resolution is passed three decades after Vanuatu demanded an insurance fund for island nations over sea level rise, Bloomberg reports.

Another novelty, this time in the field of ocean, the Sharm el Sheikh Agreement has agreed that from 2023 the ocean-related issues will be guided by two co-facilitators selected by the parties every two years who will be responsible for deciding the topics to lead the dialogue, in consultation with the parties and observers and will prepare a summary of issues to be taken to the summits.

The agreement has been reached during last-minute negotiations on how to address the growing toll of climate change in developing countries that have not or contributed less to harmful emissions.

For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has celebrated the approval of this fund that constitutes “a political symbol to rebuild lost trust”, although he regretted that “clearly this will not be enough”.

“The voices of those bordering on the climate crisis must be heard. The United Nations will support these efforts every step of the way,” he said after assessing that this summit has been an “important step towards justice.”

PROGRESS

The agreement on loss and damage is a milestone in global climate policy: a recognition that wealthier nations are accountable to the developing world for the damage caused by rising temperatures.

But the contentious summit, against the backdrop of a global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has laid bare serious disagreements over how the world should navigate the transition away from fossil fuels, and has fallen short of promoting previous POPs’ ambitions to control harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

The result, backed by nearly 200 countries early Sunday, is a disappointment for the European Union, which had begun on Saturday threatening to withdraw if the text did not strengthen ambition to reduce carbon emissions. Despite some minor changes, he largely reiterated the language of last year’s Glasgow meeting without a broader commitment to gradually reduce fossil fuels, rather than just coal, or a target to reduce global emissions by 2025.

And it is that the proposals included in the mitigation section -reduction of greenhouse gas emissions- do not provide substantial changes since the Glasgow Pact, the agreement that concluded the last COP26 climate summit held in the Scottish city, as criticized by environmental organizations and also the Spanish Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, in statements to the media.

The Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan calls on countries to phase out coal-fired power generation – at plants without carbon capture technologies – and to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, a request that was already embodied in the Glasgow text.

It also recognizes the launch of the Santiago Network, a technical assistance program to minimize loss and damage caused by the adverse effects of climate change, a parallel system to the fund that would direct aid towards climate reparations in the most affected countries.

Source: Navarra News