After Decades of Resistance, Rich Countries Offer Direct Climate Aid

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/climate/loss-and-damage-cop27-climate.html

By David Gelles, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — For 30 years, developing nations have been calling for industrialized countries to provide compensation for the costs of devastating storms and droughts caused by climate change. For just as long, rich nations that have generated the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet have resisted those calls. At the United Nations climate summit last year, only Scotland, the host country, committed $2.2 million for what’s known as “loss and damage.” But this week, the dam may have begun to break. On Sunday, negotiators from developing countries succeeded in placing the matter on the formal agenda of this year’s climate summit, known as COP27, or the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties. ...By the end of the third day of the conference, several European countries had pledged cash for a new loss and damage fund. ...Prime Minister Micheál Martin of Ireland said his country was pledging $10 million to a new effort “to protect the most vulnerable from climate loss and damage.” ...Austria’s climate minister said the country would pay 50 million euros, or around $50 million, to developing countries struggling with climate effects. Belgium joined in, promising $2.5 million in loss and damage funding to Mozambique. And Denmark said in September that it would spend at least $13 million paying for loss and damage in developing nations. Germany made a related move on Monday, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledging $170 million to a new program that would offer vulnerable nations a form of insurance in the event of climate emergencies. Other leaders said the time had come for real loss and damage funding.… 

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