The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC), which began in Sharm-el Sheikh (Egypt), has put “Loss and Damage” funding on its official agenda for the first time in UN climate negotiations.
What does it mean?
- It means that the issue will be discussed and negotiated over the next two weeks to arrive at a landing zone on how such funding can be materialised.
- Since the beginning of Conference of Parties, or COP, meetings in the early 1990s, the demand has been on the table.
- It was repeatedly attempted to be added to the agenda, but industrialised nations had blocked it out of concern that it would lead to demands for billions of dollars in compensation from developing countries.
- Recent climate catastrophes, like the floods in Pakistan, have given their push new momentum.
What is loss and damage?
- The “loss and damage” refers to costs the industrialized and developed countries, who are majorly responsible for industrial emissions that pollute the environment, should pay to poorer nations that have made negligible contribution to pollution but are more vulnerable to extreme climate events — for example, the devastating floods in Pakistan recently.
- While the vulnerable countries have been asking for climate damage finance for decades now, the rich countries have resisted it. Also, it is difficult to define and assess damage caused purely due to climate change.
- The demand for compensation for loss and damage from climate disasters is an extension of the universally acknowledged “Polluter Pays” principle.
