Countries Adopt COP27 Deal With ‘Loss and Damage’ Fund in Overnight Session

(CTN News) – At the COP27 climate meeting early on Sunday, nations accepted a contentious final deal that establishes a fund to aid poor nations suffering from climate catastrophes but does not step up efforts to reduce the emissions that cause them.

After difficult talks that lasted all night, the Egyptian COP27 chair made the final language of the agreement public and convened a plenary meeting to swiftly approve it.

The session rapidly accepted the text’s proposal to establish a “loss and damage” fund to assist poor nations in bearing the immediate expenses of climate-related calamities like storms and floods.

However, it deferred many of the more contentious choices about the fund until the next year, when a “transitional committee” would suggest that nations subsequently accept at the COP28 climate conference in November 2023.

Those suggestions would include “identifying and growing sources of revenue,” which would address the contentious issue of which nations should contribute to the new fund.

The two-week conference has been dominated by demands for such a fund, extending the discussions beyond their Friday deadline.

Negotiators had no complaints as COP27 President Sameh Shoukry blasted through the last items on the agenda after Switzerland requested a break to study the final wording.

The agreement was completed by the time dawn dawned over the summit site in the Egyptian vacation town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Fossil fuel Fizzle

Even if a war in Europe, unrest in the energy market, and rising consumer prices divert focus internationally, the two-week meeting has been considered a test of the world’s commitment to combating climate change.

The gathering in Egypt billed as the “African COP,” had promised to draw attention to the predicament of developing nations dealing with the worst effects of global warming, which is mostly the fault of affluent, industrialized nations.

Negotiators from the European Union and other nations have previously expressed concern about attempts to thwart steps aimed at strengthening the Glasgow Climate Pact from last year.

Ani Desgupta, president of the nonprofit World Resources Institute, said: “While progress on loss and damage was welcome, it is disheartening that the decision essentially copied and pasted wording from Glasgow regarding lowering emissions, rather than adopting any meaningful new initiatives.

The accepted pact did not include the phase-down of “all fossil fuels,” as was desired by India and several other delegations, in keeping with previous versions.

Instead, it urged nations to implement the COP26 Glasgow summit’s decision to “scale down unabated coal power and phase out expensive fossil fuel subsidies.”

The draught also makes mention of “low-emissions energy,” which has some people worried that it might pave the way for an increase in the usage of natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits both carbon dioxide and methane.

Espen Barth Eide, Norway’s environmental minister, told reporters that his team had hoped for a firmer deal. Although it doesn’t fully depart from Glasgow, he said it doesn’t inspire any aspiration.

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