COP27 climate summit will discuss reparations for countries facing ‘loss and damage’

“Loss and damage” has been included in the agenda at COP27, with vulnerable countries demanding funding to deal with the severe impacts of climate change

By Madeleine Cuff

Negotiators at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt have agreed to discuss setting up a fund that could see higher-income nations pay reparations to vulnerable nations already struggling with the impacts of climate change. “Loss and damage”, referring to the negative effects of climate change and efforts to minimise and address them, has been included in the formal conference agenda for the first time in the history of UN climate talks.

The talks opened with a stark message from UN secretary-general António Guterres, who warned world leaders and dignitaries that the world is “on a highway to climate hell” with its “foot on the accelerator”.

Speaking to delegates on 7 November, just days after the UN warned that current climate plans offer no “credible pathway” to limit global warming to 1.5°C, Guterres said the planet is “fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible”.

Despite the challenges of rising inflation, escalating geopolitical tensions and an energy price crisis, he said the world must use the summit to forge a new “climate solidarity pact” that would see all countries contribute their fair share to emissions cuts. The world faces a choice between cooperation or a “collective suicide pact” caused by rising temperatures, he told delegates.

It was a sobering start to a conference that has seen more than 30,000 negotiators, journalists and campaigners travel to the resort of Sharm El Sheikh for two weeks of talks.

Funding is already emerging as a key battleground. Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said the provision of funding for countries affected was a matter of “climate justice”. His country was hit by $30 billion of loss and damage as a result of devastating flooding earlier this year, he said at a press conference on 7 November. “Our journey to recovery will be held back by increasing public debt, rising global energy prices and no real access to adaptation finance,” he said.

Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, said it wasn’t just up to governments to provide loss and damage funding, arguing that oil and gas companies should also contribute. “How do companies make $200 billion in profits in the last three months and not expect to contribute at least 10 cents in each dollar of profit to a loss and damage fund?” she said during a speech to world leaders.

Amid the clamour for climate finance, others are keen to prevent other key promises made at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow, UK, from sliding down the agenda. Speaking at a New York Times event at the summit on 7 November, former UK prime minister Boris Johnson said he was “very concerned” that pledges made in Glasgow – such as to roll out net-zero targets, cut methane emissions and halt deforestation – might not become reality. “The potential achievement [of COP26] was massive, but it is all now about delivery,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak, the current UK prime minister, used his first appearance on the international stage to help launch a funding programme on 7 November to protect forests around the world. The Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership aims to ensure that a COP26 pledge to halt and reverse global forest loss by 2030 is delivered.

The partnership will see member countries drive forward work on the deployment of carbon markets, community initiatives and other strategies for tackling deforestation needed to meet the 2030 goal. However, while 145 countries, representing more than 90 per cent of the world’s forests, joined the COP26 pledge, just 26 nations, together responsible for one-third of the planet’s forests, have so far joined the COP27 partnership.

Former US vice president Al Gore captured the palpable sense of frustration surrounding the summit over the gap between ambitious promises and real-world action. “We have a credibility problem – all of us – we are not doing enough,” he told world leaders on 7 November.

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