Speaking to the Guardian last month, Belize’s representative to the UN vividly described the havoc wreaked on his country by global heating. “Loss and damage is already occurring,” said Carlos Fuller. “Severe erosion is altering communities; drought and floods [are] affecting farmers and causing infrastructure damage; [there is] coral bleaching; salt water intrusion is affecting the water supply.” From the catastrophic recent floods in Pakistan to the ongoing drought emergency in Kenya, similarly disastrous impacts are blighting developing nations across the globe. Many lack the economic resources to cope with new climate threats, which are overwhelmingly the consequence of historic carbon emissions by the world’s richest countries.
As the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, stated this week, ahead of November’s Cop27 summit in Egypt, properly addressing this dimension of the climate crisis – the damage already being done – is a “moral imperative that can no longer be ignored”. In Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries pledged to deliver $100bn a year to vulnerable states hit by severe climate-linked impacts.
