Delegates at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, reached an agreement on Sunday morning to set up a compensation fund for countries ravaged by climate disasters. This is reported by Reuters news agency. The United States and wealthy European countries have resisted this idea for years, partly for fear of being held accountable for their historically high emissions of harmful gases.
The climate summit was supposed to end on Friday at 6 p.m., but the participating countries did not agree on the climate deal. After 32 hours, an agreement was reached on financing by the rich countries for the climate damage already suffered in poor countries.
Exactly what the fund will look like and which countries will have to pay is not yet clear. It has also not yet been determined which countries are entitled to compensation. The guidelines for this will be determined by a committee next year.
“This Loss and Damages Fund will be a lifeline for poor families whose homes have been ruined, farmers whose fields have been devastated, and islanders who have been driven from their ancestral homes. This positive outcome of COP27 is an important step towards restoring trust with vulnerable countries,” said Ani Dasgupta, the president of the authoritative environmental group World Resources Institute (WRI) in response to the agreement.
Like previous proposals, the draft does not contain any reference to phasing out the use of ‘all fossil fuels’ requested by India and some other delegations. Instead, the accord refers to a coal-only phase-out, as agreed at last year’s summit.