Climate-caused 'loss and damage': securing compensation.

Pakistan was rightly elated at the last global climate summit in Egypt when it led the G77 plus China grouping to compel rich countries to pay poorer countries for climate-induced disasters. Ironically, poorer countries are bearing the brunt of climate changes they historically done little to cause. While China and India are amongst the leading global emitters in the world at present, historically, it is the rich and industrialised world which has been pumping carbon into the atmosphere since the 1750s, which has cumulatively caused global warming.

While the moral arguments for 'loss and damages' remain evident, this does not mean that the billions of dollars of damages being caused within the global south on a recurrent basis will be paid by rich and powerful countries. Rich countries of the world may have felt cornered into agreeing to create a loss and damage fund, but no firm commitments have been made yet about who should pay how much to this fund. Also, which countries should be compensated, and how much they should receive could also cause significant contention, especially if this compensation fund only manages to muster meager contributions.

While the issue of funding 'loss and damage' will probably come up again in the UAE, during the next climate summit (COP28) scheduled for next month, poorer countries should not hold their breath to be helped via such a fund. Many other past pledges to help poorer countries leapfrog environmentally damaging technologies, or to put in place needed mitigation and resilience measures, have not been given anywhere near the amount of funds needed to make a meaningful difference.

Even if rich countries do agree to allocate some money to the loss and damage fund, their allocation may be little more than a creative accounting exercise. It is quite possible that mainstream development funding for a host of other goals, ranging from health and education to water and sanitation, may be repackaged as climate financing.

It may thus be wiser for poorer countries of the global south to push for securing...