For the first time in the COP summits’ nearly 30-year history, a call for climate reparations championed by the world’s most vulnerable nations has made it onto the official agenda.
It’s formally called loss and damage, and it entails payouts from the developed countries (who have profited the most from burning fossil fuels) to developing countries (who are suffering the worst from the impacts of climate change).
Will this notion be accepted by rich countries? Or will political realities and developed countries’ fears around liability water down its original vision?
As COP27 unfolds in Egypt, host Heba Aly unpacks the prospects for loss and damage financing, as well as other avenues to improve global governance of climate financing for the most vulnerable – from debt restructuring to climate claims at the International Court of Justice.
She also discusses the complicated position of a humanitarian sector that is both in solidarity with loss and damage advocates and beholden to the very donors who are stalling progress on the issue.
Hear from The New Humanitarian’s policy editor, Irwin Loy, and our Latin America editor-at-large Paula Dupraz-Dobias, reporting from COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Source: The New Humanitarian