Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (CNN) Last week gave the world a glimpse of what climate vulnerable countries have known for a long time: while rich countries go out of their way to commit to supporting climate action, they are much less enthusiastic when it comes to pay out money.
At the UN COP27 climate summitThe United States, European Union and United Kingdom are united against creating a new fund this year to help developing countries – which have contributed little to the climate crisis – recover from climate disasters .
Develop what we call loss and damage fund is a key issue at COP27 and “the litmus test of success” of the summit, said Erin Roberts, climate policy researcher and founder of the Loss and Damage Collaboration.
As things stand, developing countries – who have been demanding funds for loss and damage for years – are facing a disappointment.
With only three days of negotiations remaining, a sense of frustration is spreading in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where the conference is taking place. Activists organize daily and increasingly angry protests outside the trading rooms. On Saturday, in what was the summit’s largest protest so far, hundreds of people marched through the sprawling conference venue, demanding that rich countries get their act together and “pay up.”
But this message is not reflected in the high-level negotiations.
An EU source directly involved in negotiations at the summit told CNN on Tuesday that the EU did not believe there should be a binding agreement on a new loss and damage fund before details of how it would work were agreed.
The source added that the EU believes that the COP27 agreement could include an agreement that work must be done on the issue and that a solution should be found by 2024.
Similarly, the British government submitted a document to the conference in which it says it wants to establish a “process” that would lead to a concrete solution by 2024 at the latest.
Senior U.S. administration officials only committed to discussing losses and damages, but did not go further to explain what type of funds they would ultimately support. They too see 2024 as the deadline for an agreement on loss and damage, but do not support the proposals put forward so far, fearing that this could expose developed countries to legal liability in the years to come.
Pressed on what kind of funds the United States would be open to for loss and damage, officials repeatedly declined to say. And they want to take the next two years to resolve these issues, rather than reaching an agreement this year.
A spokesperson for U.S. climate envoy John Kerry did not respond to a request for comment.
Pressure for delay from some the richest countries in the world means those most affected by climate change are already setting themselves up for disappointment.
“I don’t want to leave COP27 empty-handed,” Shauna Aminath, the Maldives’ environment minister, said during an event at the conference on Tuesday. “Agreeing to work on something that will be implemented in 2024 means leaving empty-handed.”
A controversial issue comes to a head
Participants sit at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 8.
Getting loss and damage onto the official COP27 agenda was seen as a huge success, and developing countries are putting rich countries to the fire and pushing for a binding commitment this year.
Negotiations on the issue were busy, summit participants told CNN, and extended late into the evening this week.
But developed countries are moving slowly on the subject: many want to take the next two years to explore possible solutions, with a proposal to make a decision by 2024, which does not guarantee a formal funding agreement.
Amid tough economic times, U.S. and European leaders fear they won’t be able to pass this funding through their country’s legislatures, where they already face an uphill battle to raise more money to meet their funding commitments. climatic.
But Aminath said she doesn’t believe the reluctance to deal with loss and damage is waning. lack of funding.
“We saw that billions were mobilized to respond to the global health emergency” during the pandemic, she said, and “we see billions spent to help Ukraine.”
Representatives from vulnerable countries also told CNN they were frustrated by rich countries’ calls for more analysis and mapping, which would cost money that could otherwise be used to address loss and damage.
“They wanted to show their voters that they are doing something when in reality they are not,” Michai Robertson, head of loss and damage financing at the Alliance of Small Island States, told CNN. “They are investing money, for example, in research departments, instead of funding specific responses to all the loss and damage we face.”
Despite the bleak outlook so far, Robertson said developing countries remained united and determined, stressing that the last thing they wanted was to find themselves stuck in another cycle of climate disasters, more debt and devastation , without any action on the part of developed countries.
“We don’t just want an opportunity to survive; we want an opportunity to thrive,” he said.
Solutions in the meantime
Scientists say the man-made climate crisis has intensified rainfall in Pakistan this summer, where floods have killed more than 1,500 people and plunged the country into crisis.
A moment of hope for loss and damage came earlier this week when Germany announced a Global Shield initiative designed to help vulnerable countries cope with loss and damage caused by the climate crisis.
Flood-ravaged countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines will be among the countries to benefit when the program begins disbursing funds early next year.
Even if the funds committed to this initiative were relatively significant, they remain paltry compared to the devastation endured by these countries.
For example, the World Bank estimated last month that Pakistan would need “at least $16.3 billion” to rebuild after this summer’s deadly floods. As of Monday, Global Shield had received total commitments of approximately $216 million.
The program has also been criticized for its underlying focus on insurance and prevention of future loss and damage, rather than direct funding to address disasters that have already – and recently – occurred.
German Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze stressed that the initiative was in addition to, not a replacement for, the official UN loss and damage fund.
“It was a good start, but it’s only a start,” Schulze said at a news conference Monday, stressing that loss and damage was “a very controversial issue.”
“I am happy that we, the international community, have finally managed to say yes, there are climate-related losses and damages,” Schulze said.
Julie-Anne Richards, an independent consultant and expert at the Loss and Damage Collaboration, said the design of the Global Shield is problematic.
“They’re facing all these climate risks because rich countries like Australia and the United States are causing the climate problem, but now they’re handing over the management of the problem to vulnerable people, saying it’s “It’s your responsibility to get insurance,” Richards told CNN. .
Richards said she is concerned that countries are spending more time, effort and money creating a system that may not be able to address the problem facing the planet. Vulnerable countries are already seeing their islands sink into the ocean, food and water supplies dwindling rapidly due to drought and homes inundated by floods.
“The loss and damage financing mechanism must be set up in such a way that it provides subsidies, does not lead to an increase in debt and does not shift the responsibility to vulnerable countries” , Richards said. “So we need new money because of the scale of the problem. The climate impacts we face are significant, and that requires significant funding.”