Key points
- Vulnerable nations least responsible for planet-heating emissions have secured a loss and damage fund at COP27.
- Loss and damage covers a broad sweep of climate impacts, from flood damage to loss of cultures from sea level rise.
- Observers say losses and damages of rick polluters are inevitably growing as the planet warms.
Countries adopted a hard-fought final agreement at the COP27 climate summit early on Sunday that sets up a fund to help poor countries being battered by climate disasters — but does not boost efforts to tackle the emissions causing them.
After tense negotiations that ran through the night, the Egyptian COP27 presidency released the final text for a deal and simultaneously called a plenary session to quickly gavel it through.
The swift approval for creating a dedicated loss and damage fund still left many of the most controversial decisions on the fund until next year, including who should pay into it.
Negotiators made no objections as COP27 President Sameh Shoukry rattled through the final agenda items.
And by the time dawn broke over the summit venue in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday, the deal was done.
What now?
Despite having no agreement for tougher emissions reductions, "we went with what the agreement was here because we want to stand with the most vulnerable," said Germany's climate secretary Jennifer Morgan, visibly upset.
Delegates praised the breakthrough on setting up the fund as climate justice, for its aim in helping vulnerable countries cope with storms, floods and other disasters being fuelled by rich nations' historic carbon emissions.
When asked by Reuters whether the goal of stronger climate-fighting ambition had been compromised for the deal, Mexico's chief climate negotiator Camila Zepeda summed up the mood among exhausted negotiators.
"Probably. You take a win when you can."
The two-week summit has been seen as a test of global resolve to fight climate change — even as a war in Europe, energy market turmoil and rampant consumer inflation distract international attention.
Billed as the "African COP," the summit in Egypt had promised to highlight the plight of poor countries facing the most severe consequences from global warming caused mainly by wealthy, industrialised nations.
In line with earlier iterations, the approved deal did not contain a reference requested by India and some other delegations to phasing down use of "all fossil fuels".
It instead called on countries to take steps toward "the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies," as agreed at the COP26 Glasgow summit.
"Too many parties are not ready to make more progress today in the fight against climate crisis," EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said, describing the deal as "not enough of a step forward for people and planet."
Who pays?
The agreement was a high-wire balancing act over seemingly unbridgeable differences.
On the one hand, the G77 and China bloc of 134 developing countries called for the immediate creation of a fund at COP27, with operational details to be agreed upon later.
Richer nations like the United States and European Union accepted that countries in the cross-hairs of climate-driven disasters need money but favoured a "mosaic" of funding arrangements.
They also wanted money to be focused on the most climate-vulnerable countries and for there to be a broader set of donors.
That is the code for countries, including China and Saudi Arabia, that have become wealthier since they were listed as developing nations in 1992.
After last-minute tussles over wording, the final loss and damage document decided to create a fund as part of a broad array of funding arrangements for developing countries "that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change".
What does the text include?
Other key points of contention were left ambiguous or put into the remit of a new transitional committee that will be tasked with coming up with a plan for making the decisions a reality for the 2023 UN climate summit in Dubai.
A reference to expanding sources of funding, "is vague enough to pass", said Ines Benomar, researcher at think tank E3G.
But she said debates about whether China — the world's biggest emitter — among others should maintain its status as "developing" was likely to reemerge next year.
"The discussion is postponed, but now there is more attention to it," she said.
For his part, China's envoy Xie Zhenhua told reporters Saturday that the fund should be for all developing countries.
However, he added: "I hope that it could be provided to the fragile countries first."
'Empty bucket'
Mr Singh said other innovative sources of finance — like levies on fossil fuel extraction or air passengers — could raise "hundreds of billions of dollars".
Pledges for loss and damage so far are minuscule in comparison to the scale of the damages.
They include $US50 million from Austria, $US13 million from Denmark and $US8 million from Scotland.
Some $US200 million has also been pledged — mainly from Germany — to the "Global Shield" project, launched by G7 economies and climate-vulnerable nations.
The World Bank has estimated the Pakistan floods alone caused $US30 billion in damages and economic loss.
Depending on how deeply the world slashes carbon pollution, loss and damage from climate change could cost developing countries $US290 to $US580 billion a year by 2030, reaching $US1 trillion to $US1.8 trillion in 2050, according to 2018 research.
Ms Adow said that a loss and damage fund was just the first step.
"What we have is an empty bucket," he said.
"Now we need to fill it so that support can flow to the most impacted people who are suffering right now at the hands of the climate crisis."
What has the reaction been?
The text also included a reference to "low-emissions energy", raising concern among some that it opened the door to the growing use of natural gas - a fossil fuel that leads to both carbon dioxide and methane emissions.
"It does not break with Glasgow completely, but it doesn't raise ambition at all," Norway's Climate Minister Espen Barth Eide told reporters.
Small island nations facing a climate-driven rise in sea level had pushed for the loss and damage deal, but lamented the lack of ambition to curb emissions.
"I recognise the progress we made in COP27" in terms of establishing the fund, the Maldives climate minister, Aminath Shauna, told the plenary.
But "we have failed on mitigation ...We have to ensure that we increase ambition to peak emissions by 2025. We have to phase out fossil fuel."
The climate envoy from the Marshall Islands said she was "worn out" but happy with the fund's approval.
"So many people all this week told us we wouldn’t get it. So glad they were wrong," Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner said by email.
Still, "I wish we got fossil fuel phase out. The current text is not enough."
