A cruelty of climate change is that the countries most immediately suffering its consequences are low-emissions states that least contributed to it. These countries — Small Island Developing states, coastal regions like Bangladesh or archipelegos such as Indonesia — are developing economies, whose progress continues to be blasted backwards by floods, cyclones, rising seas and droughts.
At the 27th conference of the parties to the United Nations climate change negotiations (COP27), taking place next week in Egypt, there will be renewed urgency to support vulnerable countries. The Paris Agreement forged in 2015 recognises the need to “avert, minimise and address the adverse consequences of climate change”. But while “averting” and “minimising” seem covered by mitigation and adaptation action, developing countries argue that the “addressing” part is missing and not defined.
Worse, additional text in the decisions in 2015 exclude any type of finance or compensation for loss and damage. However, developing nations have been fighting fiercely for a loss and damage fund with push back from developed nations. The latest discussion of a dedicated financial mechanism to address loss and damage was again postponed at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, amid heightened economic uncertainty, despite the growing climate change-related destruction around the globe, particularly in developing economies.
