A crucial meeting on climate “loss and damage” before COP28 ended in failure, with countries from the North and South failing to reach an agreement, according to consistent sources on Saturday.
An agreement in principle was reached last year at COP27 in Egypt on the creation of a fund to compensate for the “loss and damage” of Southern nations vulnerable to climate change.
But much remained to be clarified before the next COP28, which will be held in Dubai from November 30 to December 12: its exact form, the beneficiary countries and the contributors – among whom the West would like to count China.
A transition committee on establishing the fund met late Friday night in Aswan (southern Egypt), but delegates found themselves unable to reach an agreement and postponed a further decision until another meeting, November 3-5 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, according to a broadcast of the proceedings available on an official United Nations YouTube account.
The president of COP28, for his part, called on negotiators on Saturday to reach an agreement before the Dubai conference, an “essential” step according to him.
“I think it is possible to resolve all the outstanding questions,” said Sultan Al-Jaber in a statement sent to AFP, warning the members of the transition committee that “the eyes of the whole world are focused on you to reach clear, clear and solid recommendations before COP28 to implement the loss and damage fund and how to supplement it.
“Billions of people […] vulnerable to the consequences of climate change depend on the implementation of these recommendations,” argued Mr. Al-Jaber.
Problematic location
Before their failure, the discussions notably stumbled over the location of the fund: within the World Bank, accused of being in the hands of Westerners, or in a new independent structure, requested by a number of developing countries, but taking a long time to implement. in place and complex to provide new money.
This failure “clearly shows the deep gulf between rich and poor countries,” said Harjeet Singh, senior official at the NGO Climate Action Network, who attended the debates, in a comment sent to AFP on Saturday morning.
“Developed countries must be held accountable for their shameless attempts to have the fund hosted by the World Bank, to refuse to discuss the amount of financing and to disregard their responsibilities” under the terms of international climate agreements already concluded, according to him.
Echoing this, an official from the NGO Union of Concerned Scientists estimated that “today’s disappointing result constitutes a hard blow for the populations […] suffering a cascade of consequences from climate change. “The United States and other rich countries seem more concerned with evading or minimizing their responsibilities,” added Rachel Cleetus, quoted in a press release from her organization.