For the first time, the formal agenda of the U.N. climate talks will include discussion on how rich nations should pay poorer nations for the unavoidable impacts of climate change
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt—Delegates agreed in a late-night negotiating blitz to hold a formal discussion on compensation for irreparable climate damages, marking a first for the annual U.N. climate summit following decades in which rich nations blocked the topic from being tabled.
“The fact that it has been adopted as an agenda item demonstrates progress and parties taking a mature, constructive attitude towards this,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. “What I would encourage—and what I would hope—is the parties continue in that spirit of finding common areas to agree on.”
Meanwhile, the increasingly perilous impacts of climate change played out through deadly heat waves in Europe and India, monster flooding in Pakistan and Nigeria and record-breaking drought in the Western United States. The United States and European Union argue that current processes to get funding to vulnerable countries, such as disaster risk financing, early warning systems and humanitarian assistance, could be amended or reformed to to deliver money to repair or compensate for loss and damage. The Alliance of Small Island States disagrees. It wants a new pot of money that is separate from other forms of finance and doesn’t come with trade-offs or double-counting.
Countries are likely to push for clear markers of progress or timelines, and developed countries will be expected to show they’re serious about moving things forward, observers say. They may also touch on who should be contributing money and how. One outcome negotiators won’t settle on this year, however, is the actual dollars and cents countries will be expected to pony up.
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