The path to the most significant outcome of the UNFCCC 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) was laid out on the first day of the two-week long meet. On November 6, the delegates assembled at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt agreed to expand the COP’s agenda to include the demand to compensate countries that suffer climate change-related loss and damages. The summit concluded with the members agreeing to set up a global fund for the purpose. This is a major breakthrough. Though the idea of loss and damage reparations is nearly as old as global climate change negotiations, mitigation and adaptation dominated COPs for nearly three decades. There was a growing feeling amongst countries with the highest vulnerability to climate change, but with a minuscule GHG (greenhouse gases) footprint, that their concerns were not being addressed. The devastating floods in Pakistan, this year, led to the amplification of the demands for climate reparations.
After its inclusion in the Sharm El-Sheikh agenda, “loss and damages” got embroiled in the perennial source of strife in climate negotiations — funding. For more than 10 days, the US and the EU resisted all attempts to create a separate corpus, arguing, instead, that a chunk of the existing funds — by all accounts inadequate — be diverted for the reparations. Then on November 18 — the scheduled day of the COP’s closure — the EU agreed to create a new fund on the condition that developing countries that are big emitters should not be included as recipients. Instead, a way should be found to include them as potential donors. Developing countries saw this as a tactic to create a rift amongst them, and rightly criticised it as another prevarication ploy of the rich nations. Another day went in sorting out a compromise, according to which the “most vulnerable” countries will be prioritised and the door will be open for contributions by big emitters, still categorised as developing countries.
