COP27: Historic deal to fund climate damages
SHARM EL SHEIKH/NEW DELHI: The UN COP27 climate summit in Egypt, which saw polarised debates on responsibility and accountability among the global North and South, drew praise on Sunday for the landmark decision of creation of a “loss and damage” fund to help developing countries in efforts to avert, minimise and address loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change in the light of continued global warming.
But there was also anger over a failure to push further efforts on cutting emissions to keep alive the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
Jubilation over the loss and damage fund was countered by stern warnings.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said the UN climate talks had “taken an important step towards justice” with the loss and damage fund, but fallen short in pushing for the urgent carbon-cutting needed to tackle global warming.
A final COP27 statement covering the broad array of the world’s efforts to grapple with a warming planet held the line on the aspirational goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
It also included language on renewable energy for the first time, while reiterating previous calls to accelerate “efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.
Environmental experts said the creation of a loss and damage fund is a significant breakthrough that acknowledges the impact of climate change particularly warming of 1.1 degrees C till now on people’s lives and livelihoods.
One of the main contentions on the Loss and Damage funding issue was that developed countries were pushing to expand the donor base to include high income countries and emerging economies like China and India and wanted to narrow the beneficiaries to only most vulnerable (island nations and least developed countries).
EU had also sought to link the formation of the Loss and Damage facility to mitigation efforts such as peaking global emissions before 2025; reaffirming the call to reduce by 2030 noncarbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions like methane; pushing all parties to urgently increase their efforts to closing the remaining mitigation gap to pathways consistent with 1.5 degrees; accelerating the phase