COP 27: The Loss and Damage Agreement
Developing and underdeveloped countries, including CARICOM member countries, would, presumably, have been hopeful, that COP 27 might have at least witnessed the falling of the proverbial crumbs from the rich man’s table in a renewed attempt to push back what we are told is a fast approaching global climate crisis that could devastate already struggling countries.
Not a great deal in terms of earth-shattering multilateral agreementd emerged from the COP 27 forum though poor countries are likely to see the so-called Loss and Damage Agreement as, at least, something to hold on to.
In essence ‘Loss and Damage’ is an understanding, in principle, arrived at in Egypt that developed countries will be responsible for the creation of a fund that will go towards defraying expenses associated with addressing ‘loss and damage’ arising out of (presumably provable) climate-related damage that occurs in poor countries, including countries here in the Caribbean.
Part of the challenge with these ongoing climate change deliberations is that the difficulties associated with coming even close to realizing any concrete agreement on the tough issues like reducing fossil fuel consumption have created an environment in the negotiating arena in which ‘little things’ come to ‘mean a lot.’ This, it seems, may well be the case in the instance of the ‘Loss and Damage’ agreement. As one report emanating from the deliberations in Egypt stated what the deal did was to “afford vulnerable countries some measure of satisfaction in circumstances where, by and large, the major breakthroughs on issues like reducing fossil fuel consumption, among others, failed to materialize.”
It was against this backdrop, it seems, that “Loss and Damage” came to be seen as a “breakthrough development.” for poor, climate vulnerable countries. So that while Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Caribbean, for example, ponder their long-term future every time a hurricane season comes around, the best that could have been said of the so-called “breakthrough deal” by a COP 27
spokesperson was that the forum had, by virtue of arriving at a ‘Loss and Damage’ understanding, “determined a way forward on a decades-long conversation on funding for loss and damage – deliberating over how we address the impacts on communities whose lives and livelihoods have been ruined by the very worst impacts of climate change.”
The problem here is that it could well take yet another lengthy period of time and more protracted discourses before we arrive at any kind of agreement regarding the permutations
of how ‘Loss and Damage’ will work in practice.
Some analysts of the proceedings in Egypt have already labeled the forum an underachiever, their concern that the appearance on the COP 27 stage of a ‘galaxy’ of Heads of State afforded an assembly designed to find practical ways of responding to what is almost certainly one of humanity’s most pressing emergencies, a kind of ‘Oscars Night’ appearance. Everyone who was anyone was there.
Over time, a progressively thickening crust of bureaucracy has attached itself to the international climate change discourse. Experts are consolidating their positions, books are being written and huge, high-profile gatherings continue to secure generous international media attention.
One feels that such elaborate, costly pursuits ought to yield, at some point, returns that go beyond discourses that do little more than demonstrate (and at times, exacerbate) the differences between and among nations, in this instance rich and poor ones. That has to change… …..and quickly.