WORLD NEWS | Historic compensation fund approved at UN climate talks

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Nov. 20 (AP) Negotiators earlier on Sunday approved a historic deal that would set up a fund to compensate poor countries for carbon emissions from richer ones. Pollution has fallen victim to extreme weather, but a larger overarching deal is still being negotiated. Air fights because of emission reduction efforts.

After the decision on the fund was approved, talks were suspended for 30 minutes so that delegates could read the text of other measures they were due to vote on.

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The decision established a fund for what negotiators said was loss and damage. It is a huge win for poorer countries that have long appealed for cash – sometimes seen as reparations – because they are often victims of climate-worsening floods, droughts, heat waves, famines and storms, despite their concerns about Pollution contributes little to warming the climate. Earth.

It has also long been called a climate justice issue.

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“We hope that this is how our 30-year journey has finally come to fruition today,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, who regularly spearheads the world’s poorest countries. A third of her country was submerged in a devastating flood this summer, and she and other officials have used the motto: “What happens in Pakistan doesn’t stay in Pakistan.”

“It means that for a country like ours, we’re going to have the kinds of solutions that we’ve been advocating for,” Maldives Environment Minister Aminath Shauna told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Outside experts hailed the decision as historic.

“The loss and damage fund will go to poor families whose homes have been destroyed, farmers whose fields have been destroyed and A lifeline for islanders forced out of their ancestral home.” Approved Early Morning. “This positive outcome at COP27 is an important step in rebuilding trust with fragile states.”

Alex Scott, a climate diplomacy expert at think tank E3G, said it reflected what could be done when the poorest countries remained united.

“I think it’s a big deal to get governments to come together and at least really work out the first steps … on how to deal with loss and damage,” Scott said. But as with all climate finance institutions, creating a fund is one thing , getting money in and out is another matter, she said. Developed countries are still falling short of their 2009 pledge to spend $100 billion a year on other climate aid — designed to help poor countries develop green energy and adapt to future warming.

Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at the International Climate Action Network, said the agreement “brings hope to vulnerable groups that they will be helped to recover from climate disaster and rebuild their lives”.

“Loss and damage is a way of identifying past harm and compensating for past harm,” said Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth climate scientist who calculated the dollar amount of warming for each country. “These hazards are scientifically identifiable.”

“In many ways, we’re talking about reparations,” said Sacoby Wilson, a professor of environmental health and justice at the University of Maryland. “It’s an apt term” he said, as richer northern countries benefit from fossil fuels while poorer global south countries are devastated by floods, droughts, climate refugees and hunger.

The Egyptian president, who has been criticized by all sides, proposed a new loss and damage agreement on Saturday afternoon and within hours a deal was reached, but Norway’s negotiators said it was not so much the Egyptians It is the joint efforts of all countries.

German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan and Chilean environment minister Mesa Rojas, who put the deal on the table and pushed it to the finish line, hugged each other after it passed, posed for a photo and said, “Yes, we did it!”

Under the agreement, the fund will initially draw on contributions from developed countries and other private and public sources, including international financial institutions. While initially not requiring contributions from major emerging economies like China, this option remains on the table and will be negotiated in the coming years. It is a key requirement of the European Union and the United States, which argue that China and other big polluters currently classified as developing countries have the financial means and responsibility to pay.

The fund will primarily target the most vulnerable countries, though there is also room for aid in middle-income countries hit hard by climate disasters.

Sleepy-eyed, rumpled delegations began to fill the plenary hall at 4 a.m. local time on Sunday, but they failed to see the overarching cover decision.

Going into its final session, India is demanding changes to last year’s agreement that called for a phase-out of “unabated coal”, including phasing out oil and natural gas, two other fossil fuels that produce heat-trapping gases. . While European countries and others have been pushing for the language, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Nigeria have been persistent in keeping it out.

“We’re very overtime. There was some good spirits earlier today. I think more people are more frustrated by the lack of progress,” Norway’s climate change minister, Espen Barth Eide, told The Associated Press. He said it came down to getting stricter on fossil fuel emissions and retaining the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) agreed at a climate summit in Glasgow since pre-industrial times.

“Some of us are trying to say we actually have to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, and that requires some action. For example, we have to reduce our use of fossil fuels,” Eide said. “But there’s a very powerful fossil fuel lobby … trying to stop any language we produce. So that’s pretty clear.”

Both developed and developing countries have expressed strong interest in proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, known as mitigation. The officials said the language proposed by Egypt runs counter to some pledges made at last year’s United Nations climate conference in Glasgow to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since the pre-industrial era . The world has warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-19th century.

Some of Egypt’s language on climate change mitigation seems to hark back to the 2015 Paris Agreement, before scientists knew the importance of the 1.5-degree threshold, and made heavy reference to the weaker 2-degree Celsius (3.6-degree Fahrenheit) goal, which is Why scientists and Europeans are afraid to backtrack, says climate scientist Maarten van Aalst of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre.

“We need an agreement on 1.5 degrees. We need strong language on mitigation and that’s what we’re pushing for,” said Irish Environment Minister Eamon Ryan. (AP)

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