Calamity cash, but no new emissions cuts

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — For the first time, the nations of the world decided to help pay for the damage an overheating world is inflicting on poor countries, but they finished marathon climate talks on Sunday without further addressing the root cause of those disasters — the burning of fossil fuels.

The deal, gaveled around dawn in this Egyptian Red Sea resort city, establishes a fund for what negotiators call loss and damage.

It is a big win for poorer nations which have long called for cash — sometimes viewed as reparations — because they are often the victims of climate-worsened floods, droughts, heat waves, famines and storms despite having contributed little to the pollution that heats up the globe.

It is also long been called an issue of equity for nations hit by weather extremes and small island states that face an existential threat from rising seas.