AA Edit | Will the polluter pay?

The decision of the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), now underway at Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, to take on its agenda funding for loss and damage for poor nations is welcome in the limited sense that it is an admission of the rich and industrialised nations of their role in polluting the planet. Experience, however, shows that such promises to compensate for environmental sins are more met in their breach than observance.

In theory, loss and damage refers to costs nations have incurred from weather extremes or impacts. They include unprecedented rains, droughts and rising sea levels which impact the poor nations mostly and poorest sections in all nations.

The rich nations had at the UN climate meet in Copenhagen 12 years ago agreed to channel $100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020 so that they can adapt to climate change and get ready for future changes. That the exact numbers are still not available points to the failure of the promise. All that we have on record is an admission by UN secretary-general António Guterres that “We are not there yet” and a UN report that the target was out of reach.

The one silver line is that COP26 which met at Glasgow last year was not even open to the idea of compensation but that position has changed now. However, the larger issue is not about compensation; it’s the mismatch of the payment that the polluters of the past are told to make and the sacrifices asked of those who are now being accused of polluting. A just solution should begin with a binding agreement by the rich nations to cut down on their consumption but that has not happened yet. They either refuse to join such protocols or withdraw from them at will. It’s their commitment to such promises and agreements that matters most. Funds are just a reflection of it.