Opinion and news by Mathew Carr

Nov. 30, 2023 — The proposed structure of the climate loss and damage fund fails the basic notion of climate justice in at least three ways.

The fund will pay out when countries suffer loss and damage related to climate change.

While the proposal is being hailed as a victory by western press, including Reuters, it’s not a really a win for those wanting to hold culprits of climate damage to account; it’s no system for getting historically responsible countries to clean up the mess they have mostly created — according to their emitted heat-trapping gas over time.

I assume the proposal dated Nov. 29 is by Egypt, which is handing its presidency of the UN climate talks to the UEA at the negotiations whose 2023 version officially begins today. I’m not criticising the attempt at a compromise, given the UN process has been captured somewhat by rich countries. I suggest how the proposal can be made better.

Send comments and criticisms on my opinion here to mathew@carrzee.net, especially if you are an author of the proposal (which is presented below for download).

Injustice One

The announced contributions to the fund so far make no sense, given the historical responsibility.

Reuters put it like this: Several countries made small pledges “that countries hoped would build to a substantial sum, including $100 million from the COP28 host United Arab Emirates, another $100 million from Germany, at least $51 million from Britain, $17.5 million from the United States, and $10 million from Japan.”

The Times added a promise from the EU: https://apple.news/AnUlrDMJdQoyh-exfacxR1g

The sums are still pitifully small. There is potentially billions of US dollars worth of loss and damage from the climate crisis each year. The bill for Pakistan’s flood damage last year was $15 billion, the Times said.

Under a more logical approach, countries would contribute based on historical responsibility. Here is a chart from Carbon Brief that shows historical responsibility.

source: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-which-countries-are-historically-responsible-for-climate-change/

The US, China and Russia should contribute the most, preferably taking into account the end users of the carbon-intensive products made by the country. If China makes products for consumption in the US, then America is kinda responsible for a portion of China’s emissions — is the logic.

Injustice Two

The contributions to the fund shouldn’t be voluntary because the rest of the world has not voluntarily signed up to suffer the consequences of the damage caused mainly by wealthy people in wealthy countries.

That suffering is mandatory to those experiencing it, suffering it.

Here is a snip from yesterday’s proposal:

Footnote five is important because it indicates there still may be a shift in this proposal over the next two weeks of the talks designed to end Dec. 12 (but they probably won’t end then):

The footnote suggests some parties are still not happy.

I suggest contributions occur more in line with responsibility — in some way, shape or form, even if that’s a recommendation rather than mandatory. Then at least countries failing to contribute accordingly can be named and shamed … and then hopefully do better.

Injustice Three

Developed countries — those mostly to blame for the climate crisis — should not get a veto, yet they effectively do under the proposal.

Here is how decision making will work.

The 26-member board will have 14 from emerging countries and 12 from developed countries (even though developed countries only have about 1 billion of the world’s 8 billion people).

Decisions are by consensus and must be agreed by 80% of board members. So rich countries can easily veto decisions.

I suggest emerging countries should be able to push through decisions, so a 51% threshold. This is especially important, given the contributions to the fund are voluntary.

I emphasise this: on basic democratic principle alone, 51% is more appropriate as a threshold — 14 board members — because emerging countries have more than 80% of the world’s population.

Choosing how much of the loss and damage incurred from a specific climatic event to pay out on … will become increasingly difficult and fraught because funds must be kept for potentially worse climatic events later in the year.

Replenishment system is vague; decisions pertaining to it will also be fraught

The fund will probably need to be replenished yearly, while the plan indicates every four years — it’s unclear how that will work and it’s a potential further injustice; climate loss and damage will occur every year so why shouldn’t replenishment be annualized?

The plan says this:

54. The Fund is able to receive contributions from a wide variety of sources of funding, including grants and concessional loans from public, private and innovative sources, as appropriate.1

55. The Fund will have a periodic replenishment every four years and will maintain the flexibility to receive financial inputs on an ongoing basis.

56. The Board will prepare a long-term fundraising and resource mobilization strategy and plan for the Fund to guide its mobilization of new, additional, predictable and adequate financial resources from all sources of funding.

(Updated with Times report, Pakistan; earlier with more at “Injustice Three” and notes, possibly more to come)

NOTES

I was going to say having the fund reside at the US-influenced World Bank based in Washington DC was an injustice, but I’m holding fire for now, on that. The proposal allows for a shift in the fund’s location, though knowing how the world works, it will be difficult to shift once started. Further, putting it at the World Bank will apparently get funds moving more quickly, according to reports (I doubt this). This smacks of rich countries patting emerging countries on the head and saying: ‘Don’t worry, we’ll look after you.’

Reuters splash (link above in story)