Financing loss and damage: the West’s position threatens the progress made at COP27
Western countries are sticking to their position on the arrangements for setting up a fund for loss and damage caused by climate change. The fourth meeting on the implementation of this mechanism, announced at COP27 in Egypt, ended in failure. This is bad news just a few weeks ahead of COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Will the Transitional Committee on Loss and Damage succeed in meeting the conditions necessary for the operationalisation of the Climate Loss and Damage Fund before the 28th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP28)? Nothing is less certain. The committee’s fourth meeting ended in failure on the night of Friday 20 to Saturday 21 October in Egypt.
Among the stumbling blocks to the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund is the choice of the United States of America, which wants to place the fund within the World Bank, while this Bretton Woods institution is increasingly criticised in the countries of the South, particularly in Africa, where leaders are calling for a thorough reform of its operations. Instead, the countries of the South are calling for the creation of an independent institution, which some experts believe will take a long time to set up and provide with “fresh money”.
What role for China?
Alongside this American position, there is also the reluctance of the rich countries, which “seem more inclined to shirk or minimise their responsibility than to engage in good-faith negotiations to achieve fair results”, lamented Rachel Cleetus, the political director and chief economist of the climate and energy programme at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), after the meeting of the transition committee.
The West also intends to include China among the contributors to the Loss and Damage Fund. At COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh nearly a year ago, Beijing said it was in favour of setting up such a mechanism. However, “it is the historical emitting countries, first and foremost the United States of America and Europe, that must contribute to this fund”, said the Chinese negotiators.
Back to the negotiating table in early November 2023
Except that today, China is the world’s second biggest polluter, behind the United States of America and ahead of India, Brazil and Russia. Faced with the difficulty of finding a compromise, the Transition Committee on Loss and Damage, which held its first meeting in March 2023, is reconvening its members from 3 to 5 November 2023 in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
This time, the negotiators have no room for error. “The eyes of the world are on you to come up with clear, clean and solid recommendations before COP28 on how to implement the Loss and Damage Fund and how to replenish it”, warned Sultan Al Jaber, the President of COP28, at the end of the Aswan meeting. The climate summit will be held from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in Dubai. At COP27, the countries present agreed to set up a Loss and Damage Fund, presented as “a major victory for developing countries and communities on the front line of the climate crisis”.
