Most experts have labeled the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP27, a failure due to the lack of progress on commitments made during the COP26 meeting in 2021 and the absence of explicit agreements to phase out fossil fuels. More generally, because it relied on unanimous agreement from all parties, the COP process has come under fire as ineffective and untenable.
However, COP27 did result in one significant achievement: the developed economies of the world, including the US and the EU, finally acknowledged some responsibility for the “loss and damage” brought on by climate change, which was a crucial demand of many developing countries.
They decided, in the formal language of the conference’s final declaration, “to establish new finance structures for aiding developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in reacting to loss and damage.” ‎A special committee of twenty-four countries will decide the new fund’s financing, administration, and distribution. Towards the end of next year, they are expected to table their findings at the COP28 summit in the UAE.
This fund is undoubtedly a cause for celebration. But poorer countries must be cautious because they need assistance when catastrophic weather conditions wreak havoc on them year after year. They risk losing the war for climate justice if they succeed in this battle.
Pakistan, which had recently experienced terrible floods, took the initiative diplomatically in the weeks preceding the conference. It ensured that the cries of communities affected by floods could not be disregarded and that wealthy countries felt pressured to do more than just acknowledge the harm their historical emissions have caused.
Pakistan became the steadfast voice for the developing countries at COP27, speaking for all countries confronting climate danger as president of the G77. Unsurprisingly, there were attempts to split up developing countries. Pakistan deserves credit for keeping the group united by recognizing the particularities of each nation’s circumstances while continuously bringing up the shared goal— setting up a loss and damage fund— which would be advantageous to all.
As Meena Raman, director of Third World Network and an authority on the UN climate summits, said to The Guardian: “We have seen such divide-and-control efforts time and time again. But when the G77 remains strong, we get good outcomes; if they are divided, developing countries lose.”
The agreement on a loss and damage fund proves the effectiveness of climate diplomacy and the pressure on wealthy countries to supply outcomes. But to use that as a platform for climate justice, we must first understand what climate justice is. Otherwise, true climate justice will always remain a conundrum, and the larger discussion will now focus on the issue of culpability and duty. And that, in turn, could dramatically alter the motivations of the key protagonists
Recall that John Kerry, the top climate change ambassador for the USA, said that a fund of this nature “simply isn’t happening.” Considering this hurdle, the creation of the fund after COP27 is an impressive diplomatic accomplishment.
But without a justification that is helpful to most people worldwide, such victories are insufficient. However, the G77’s reaction to the fund’s statement is cause for concern. Ironically, its message— “Loss and damage is not charity; it’s about climate justice“— pulled the rug out from under those who have been fighting the climate justice battle for years.
Let us be clear: a fund to compensate for losses and damages is not charity, and it cannot ever, even in the remotest sense, but what about climate justice? Money cannot replace the lives and livelihoods that have been lost. ‎By equating the two, wealthy countries were given a simple exit and one they were willing to take.
This debate with those who successfully managed developing country diplomacy at COP27 goes beyond philosophical differences. This situation has significant practical ramifications. The only idea for such an effort that wealthy countries would accept was the loss and damage fund, which was adopted with a fine print that let them off the hook for responsibility and accountability. ‎COP27 focused appropriately on those who were harmed while turning a blind eye to those who were inflicting it. Wealthy countries made the year’s biggest agreement, but this is not justice at all.
If the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather are caused by climate change, which is believed to be the result of past and present emissions. It implies that individuals responsible for the emissions are responsible for the flooding this year in Pakistan and the advancing desertification in North Africa.
But who exactly is to be blamed? The industrialized world’s governments have admitted that they share some blame. However, the businesses that created, distributed, and profited from the goods that caused the emissions should also be held accountable.
There will undoubtedly be hot discussions over it. However, in theory, the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have let the genie out of the bottle by merely taking responsibility for the global costs of climate change and paying little attention to the genuine offenders. This fund empowers them to wreck the earth as much as they like in return for offering to cover the costs after the destruction. They are not even obliged to make the concrete commitments that`have long distinguished COP events.
In essence, wealthy countries packaged the dollar as climate justice and sold it to underdeveloped and sorely unheard countries. Ronald Reagan, a former US president, reportedly said, “A hungry child knows no politics.”
There is another risk too. According to the agreements made at COP27, a fund would be established to help poor countries that are “especially susceptible to climate change.” Climate vulnerability cannot be measured with any degree of objectivity, and no institution has the right to judge who deserves justice more than others. Including this stipulation for receiving the cash might compel the countries to pretend to be the most vulnerable to climate change.
Conclusively, the agreement on a loss and damage fund proves the effectiveness of climate diplomacy and the pressure on wealthy countries to supply outcomes. But to use that as a platform for climate justice, we must first understand what climate justice is. Otherwise, true climate justice will always remain a conundrum, and the larger discussion will now focus on the issue of culpability and duty. And that, in turn, could dramatically alter the motivations of the key protagonists.
