As the United Nations climate conference opens in Egypt, the most critical talks will likely focus on the soaring costs of limiting — and adapting to — global warming, especially in the world's most vulnerable countries. It's a contentious conversation more than a decade in the making.
In 2009, industrialized countries pledged to provide developing nations with $100 billion a year in climate financing by 2020. The agreement is rooted in the fact that developed countries generated most of the heat-trapping pollution now in the atmosphere, while developing nations have already begun to bear a disproportionate share of the harm from extreme weather.
