The loss and damage climate agenda will sink us all

Throughout COP27, which ended last weekend, there was the usual juvenile sniping at the engagement in the climate change mitigation process of the oil-producing countries, as if anything could possibly be achieved without their collaboration. But the real waste of time and money at COP27 was … well, COP27. Not because the entire conference was undermined by the supposedly sinister Gulf lobby, but because it was hijacked and fatally compromised by the superficially righteous “loss and damage” brigade.

Loss and damage is the idea that poor countries that are suffering the effects of climate change, such as floods, storms and rising sea levels, should be financially compensated by the rich nations responsible for historic carbon emissions. This might sound like a great idea, a virtuous exercise in “climate justice.” But in reality, it is an insane distraction from the all-important job in hand — saving the planet.

Thanks to the focus on loss and damage, no progress at all was made at COP27 toward the world’s already shaky climate change goals. Worse, the stage has now been set for years of continuing inaction over the only thing that truly matters.

The actual mechanics of the “guilt tax” — which countries will pay which, and how much — are yet to be thrashed out. This means that, for the foreseeable future, instead of getting on with the business of saving the planet, the entire COP process is in danger of being shunted into a cul-de-sac of bickering and horse-trading over the loss and damage issue.

The irony is that, while the squabbling over compensation goes on, the impact of uncontrolled climate change on the nations demanding compensation will only grow worse. It is difficult to see what consolation a pocketful of gold will be for a nation already under water.

We now face a catastrophic scenario in which, as the impacts of global warming become ever worse, instead of working to attack the cause, the world will be squabbling about which countries should be paid how much in compensation.

Inevitably, this will go on, unresolved and sucking up bandwidth, for years. In the face of the impending and increasingly likely disaster predicted by numerous and increasingly alarming reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this amounts to a criminal waste of precious time and money, both of which would be better spent on solving the central, existential problem.

The UAE, which signed up to host COP28 in good faith, is doubtless braced for the slings and arrows that will come its way and is to be applauded for nevertheless sticking its head above the parapet. But now it also finds itself in the invidious position of being expected to pick up the ball that was dropped in Egypt, while simultaneously trying to progress the loss and damage agenda.

It simply cannot be done. Addressing climate change demands a single-minded, united global effort and loss and damage is a divisive, politically motivated distraction.

At the very least, this issue must be cut out from the truly urgent business of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and handed over to a completely different body, with no overlapping engagement.

Between now and next year, the UN and the Parties to the Convention need to get a grip. If they do not, COP28 in the UAE will be swamped by this self-defeating nonsense and all of us — including the aggrieved nations of the Global South — will pay the price.