The main matter: cash
One of the largest conversations at COP27 shall be over one query: who needs to be footing the invoice for local weather change?
It’s been an unprecedented 12 months for local weather disasters. Flooding in Pakistan killed over 1,000 individuals, destroyed almost 2 million properties, and triggered an estimated $15 billion in damages. Drought in East Africa has worn out crops, threatening individuals throughout the area with famine.
These disasters are hitting hardest for international locations which have contributed little or no to local weather change, so some argue that wealthy international locations just like the US, which has contributed about 20% of the world’s historic emissions, ought to pay for it. China emits way more right this moment than some other nation, and is the second-largest historic emitter, with 11% of the worldwide complete.
“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres
In a historic transfer, local weather financing for “loss and damages” made it onto the official agenda for COP27. This is funding that will go to serving to international locations take care of local weather disasters like floods and droughts which might be turning into extra frequent. The language took hours of negotiations to finalize, and it’s unclear what progress officers will make on really coming to an settlement, particularly as a result of international locations are already falling behind on earlier local weather finance obligations.
In 2009, a bunch of nations together with the US dedicated to offering $100 billion {dollars} per 12 months by 2020. The funding is meant to assist creating international locations minimize their emissions and adapt to the results of local weather change with protections in opposition to results like drought and sea degree rise.
The contributing group has fallen brief, reaching simply $83 billion in financing in 2020. And some international locations just like the US, Canada, and the UK aren’t contributing their “fair share,” based on a latest evaluation by CarbonBrief that appears at international locations’ monetary contributions in comparison with their historic emissions contributions to local weather change.
Missing the mark on present local weather finance targets doesn’t bode nicely for these searching for extra assist, however we’ll be conserving observe of conversations over the subsequent two weeks to see what officers give you. Hopefully, not simply extra blah blah blah.
What else I’m watching: reactions to US local weather coverage
COP27 comes with many within the local weather world nonetheless celebrating passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into legislation in August and supplies $370 billion in funding for local weather and power motion within the US.