At COP27, climate ‘loss and damage’ funding makes it on the table

At COP27, climate ‘loss and damage’ funding makes it on the table

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Thomson Reuters Foundation): Warned that mounting economic crises should not delay action on increasingly obvious global warming threats, climate negotiators agreed at U.N. talks on Sunday to start discussions on a funding plan to help climate-hit countries cope with surging losses.

As the COP27 climate summit opened in Egypt, U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said concrete action to tackle emissions and climate risks, delayed over decades, could no longer wait as dangerous effects worsen.

"There is no one single crisis as critical, as impactful, as climate change," he said.

"Wars will end, inflation, the cost of living, energy crises, these will come to an end. But what we are seeing... all around the world (is that) climate change is ever present and will get worse.”

The agreement to put funding to address "loss and damage" on the negotiating agenda came amid sustained pressure from small island states and other vulnerable nations, including Pakistan, hit by summer floods that covered a third of the country.

Richer governments, whose large historic emissions have been the main driver of climate impacts, are expected to offer finance to back a "Global Shield" at COP27 that would boost insurance coverage and early warning systems for poor countries.

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