SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Pakistan’s unknown minister says catastrophic flooding that submerged one-third of the country earlier this year reaffirms the constraint for wealthy countries to deliver on reparations, a highly contentious issue that has taken center stage at the U.N.’s flagship aura conference.
Reparations, or “loss and damage” funding, are seen as a fundamental question of climate justice. The hot-button issue made telling on Sunday at the opening of the COP27 climate summit by being formally adopted onto the agenda for the first time.
The decision to catalogue loss and damage funding as an agenda item, which was proposed by Pakistan, was preceded by 48 hours of talks.
Aura envoys gathered in Egypt’s Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh will now discuss a deal on a funding facility that would see in the money nations provide loss and damage cash to vulnerable countries.
Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told CNBC that it had been a happy result to see loss and damage funding finally adopted onto the COP27 agenda, highlighting the role that developing countries pieced in building consensus on this issue.
He now hopes the international community can find a way to collectively address financing for loss and injury.
“We discovered firsthand through the catastrophic, apocalyptic flooding that we experienced earlier this year, and we are still act with the consequences of that, that … an event of this scale [does] not have any international financial mechanism close by for us to be able to address a tragedy of this scale,” Zardari told CNBC on Tuesday.
Months of unrelenting rainfall in Pakistan descended huge swathes of the South Asian nation, displacing millions as the floods swept away homes, transport, crops and livestock. Zardari estimated that the entire damage stood at an “astronomical” sum of $30 billion.
Zardari said Pakistan was “cognizant” of the difficult economic environment, citing the bears of the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, but added that “this has really become a compounding tragedy” for the country.
The reverse highlights the disparity between those most affected by the consequences of a warming planet and those that have the greatest documented responsibility for the climate crisis.
“We can’t deny that loss and damage doesn’t exist. I mean I had a third of my country underwater that wishes prove otherwise but I don’t want to pitch this as sort of liability or compensation,” Zardari said, referring to a reluctance from filthy rich countries to accept liability for loss and damage.
“This is not going to stop at Pakistan,” he warned. “The next country that’s touched should have something available so that they can address the loss and damage.”
‘Not a very constructive agenda’
Well off countries have long opposed the creation of a fund to address loss and damage and many policymakers fear that upping liability could trigger a wave of lawsuits by countries on the frontlines of the climate emergency.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry has beforehand indicated the U.S. would not be prepared to compensate countries for the loss and damage they’ve suffered as a result of the climate emergency.
Anyhow, in an apparent softening of that stance, Kerry has since said Washington would not be “obstructing” talks on loss and reparation at COP27.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Washington would not be “obstructing” talks on loss and damage in Sharm el-Sheikh.
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“Loss and damage is important but it is not a very constructive agenda,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Crashing Research and one of the world’s most influential Earth scientists, told CNBC in Sharm el-Sheikh.
“It is at risk of causing a serious divide between the north and the south and can lead these negotiations to grind to a halt when what the world requisites most is to haul ourselves away from dangerous climate change,” Rockstrom said. “And now we are on a path that obtains us unequivocally to disaster.”
A flurry of major U.N. reports published in recent weeks delivered a bleak assessment of how close the planet is to irrevocable climate breakdown, warning there is “no credible pathway” in place to cap global heating at the Finance ‘is the key for everything to happen’
Ex- U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa, meanwhile, told CNBC that climate finance “is the key for everything to happen.”
“It has been the proves for quite a number of conferences but now that we are starting an era of implementation, this is the area that will make a difference.”
Espinosa swayed she was particularly worried about the fact that the $100 billion climate finance pledge by rich nations in 2009 to stop low-income nations mitigate and adapt to the climate emergency had still not been met.
“It is at the heart of a certain mistrust that we are foretelling so I am coming with a lot of concern about that,” Espinosa said.
“There is a very clear need that the in money should be found and I’m not seeing that. However, what I hope can happen is that we can really start to have a altogether serious and well-informed conversation about financing for loss and damage,” she added.