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Climate Brief: Last Minute Support for Loss and Damage Kicks COP into Overtime [1]
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Date: 2022-11-18
In an unexpected development, the EU Friday announced its official support of a mechanism for funding loss and damage to developing countries, thereby extending COP27 into overtime as negotiators from the Global North and Global South deliberate on the nuanced wording of the final conference document.
“We were reluctant about a fund, it was not our idea. I know from experience it takes time before a fund can be established,” said [Frans] Timmermans, the vice-president of the European Commission. “But since they [developing countries] were so attached to it, we have agreed. This is our final offer.”
This looms as a historic win for nations and communities, who have suffered irreparable damages due to climate change and have fought for years for monetary compensation from the polluting nations of the Global North. This year, they had lobbied boldly and effectively to get loss and damage included on the official agenda.
Later in the day, the EU proposal was backed by Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada. Developing countries are considering the proposal, which would seek funds from numerous sources, both public and private.
Meanwhile, US Climate Envoy John Kerry, who has not been a proponent of a loss and damage mechanism, has tested positive for Covid-19 and will be working remotely from his hotel room as the negotiations continue Saturday.
The Guardian has an in-depth interview with the Australian climate change minister Chris Bowen on the loss and damage proposal as well as the importance of COP27 not watering down agreements coming out of Glasgow, especially the importance of maintaining the pledge to maintain global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees C. Bowen said many countries came to Egypt with plans of backing down from this ambition.
“I had assumed you didn’t need to fight for 1.5C [to stay in the agreement],” he told the Guardian. “When I got here there was a real push on to water down the Glasgow agreement and that’s not on, and so we had to fight, along with others.”
Also in the Guardian, Fiona Harvey characterizes a breakdown in negotiations between the north and south as unprecedented since the onset of the UNFCCC 30 years ago. Many are saying that the climate change convention, written in 1992, is woefully inadequate to address the climate crisis we are currently experiencing and did not expect at the time.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, suggests high emitting countries be part of a donor base to a fund to assist poorer nations.
“Large emerging economies will significant resources should be included,” he told the Guardian. “Saudi Arabia said on Thursday night it must be all the responsibility of the developed world. But they have not insignificant resources. Surely they have the capability of providing funding?”
Today, China is the world’s second biggest economy, and responsible for more cumulative emissions than any country other than the US. Nations classed in 1992 as developing – including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and India – now figure in the top 10 of cumulative historical emissions, eclipsing many developed countries, and their economies are also growing fast. Frans Timmermans, the vice-president of the European Commission, said: “[We have to] take account of the economic situation of countries in 2022, not 1992.”
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