Vulnerable countries have been pushing for nearly thirty years: the recognition that climate change is causing serious damage and will cause much more damage in the future. And above all the recognition that one country has a much greater responsibility for causing that damage than another. Last week, at the climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, it was finally decided to raise the subject in the negotiations Loss and Damage should be officially put on the agenda. Even if the summit, which will last until the end of next week, yields little else, this is an important decision.
It should have happened much earlier. For it is painfully unfair that vulnerable countries, ranging from small island states in the Pacific to the poorest countries in Africa, are being hit hard by the consequences of climate change, such as storm surges, floods, prolonged drought and increasingly unpredictable weather, without be able to do something about it yourself. And it’s even more painful that the countries that have caused global warming are much less affected by the consequences. Not because they are less affected by it, but because they have the money to arm themselves against it and to repair the damage.
For nearly two decades, the wealthy countries have avoided a discussion of responsibility. When that failed, they decided to ‘play along’. In 2013, at the climate summit in Warsaw, a ‘mechanism’ was created to delve into the subject. Two years later, at the Paris summit, Loss and Damage was given its own chapter in the Climate Agreement – with the emphatic addition that any legal liability could never follow from this. And last year in Glasgow it was decided on a ‘dialogue’, but outside the official negotiating agenda.
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After a year with a large number of climate disasters worldwide, it was no longer tenable to ignore Loss and Damage. Under Pakistan’s leadership, poor countries in Sharm el-Sheikh want to make firm agreements on compensation. Extreme heat waves, which led to a lot of meltwater from the glaciers in the Himalayas, and exceptionally heavy monsoon rains, flooded a third of Pakistan this fall ($40 billion in damage). Other countries were also ravaged by weather extremes: from China (drought and flooding) to Nigeria (flooding), from the Horn of Africa (drought) to the US (drought and Hurricane Ian). Insurer Aon estimate the economic damage by natural disasters through the third quarter of this year at $227 billion.
A discussion about damage and compensation was therefore inevitable in Sharm-el-Sheikh. But it threatens to be a Pyrrhic victory for the countries that insisted on it. Some rich countries promise money for a damage fund. Germany is making 170 million euros available, Austria 50 million. Scotland, Ireland, Denmark and Belgium have also pledged to contribute to such a fund. But such amounts have at most a symbolic value. Added up, it’s a pittance compared to the billions that the affected countries are asking – and needing to repair damage.
It shows that rich countries still do not recognize their responsibility. Jacob Werksman, Director General for Climate Action at the European Commission, be this week on the strict conditions for the discussion of damage. This should not be about “liability and financial compensation” and time is needed to reach agreements – until 2024 at the latest. Also according to Minister Sigrid Kaag (Finance, D66), appointed co-chair of a group of about eighty finance ministers who think about climate and financial policy, ‘talking about damage’ is not the same as acknowledging guilt.
Understandably, rich countries don’t want to get involved in lawsuits over claims for damages after a natural disaster. But with some understanding of the (financial) demands of poor countries, there will be more room for what is at stake in the climate negotiations: a much faster reduction of greenhouse gases than is currently the case. Europe is ready to do so, but it will not be enough if China and India do not go beyond what they have promised. To force them to do so, pressure from developing countries is also needed. Paying for climate damage is therefore not development aid, and it is certainly not charity. In a year that saw Europe experience prolonged drought and an unprecedented series of heat waves, resulting in an estimated 16,000 premature deaths, that is well-understood self-interest.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 12, 2022