The United States will participate in creating and contributing to a fund that will pay developing nations to address climate change.
The fund, negotiated at the COP27 United Nations Summit, was originally known as a “loss and damage” fund and had been blocked by previous US administrations.
The nations involved are mostly from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific, who see the affair as payback for a crisis they did not contribute to but could nonetheless, in their opinion, destroy them. .
The money will go to help them cope with disasters like floods and droughts that they say have been made worse by climate change.
A Biden administration official confirmed the decision to New York Times Saturday.
However, there will be obstacles, mainly because both the US and the European Union demand that China pay into the fund. The UN still designates Communist China as a ‘developing nation’.
It will also be a challenge to get the soon-to-be-Republican-controlled Congress to approve the additional funding after raising $1 billion as part of the Cut Inflation Act.
This is a developing story.
The United States will participate in creating and contributing to a fund that will pay developing nations to address climate change.
Chinese climate envoy Xie Zhenhua welcomed the resumption of formal talks with his US counterpart John Kerry on Saturday as “very constructive” as the world’s top two polluters ended a freeze on cooperation.
Senior officials met during the UN COP27 conference in Egypt after US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed at a G20 summit in Indonesia earlier this week to resume collaboration on climate change.
Beijing suspended the talks in August due to anger over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Cooperation between the superpowers is key in the fight against global warming and has led to breakthroughs at previous UN climate conferences, most notably the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
Xie described his talks with Kerry at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as “frank, friendly, positive” and “generally very constructive.”
“We have agreed that after this COP we will continue formal talks, including face-to-face meetings,” he told reporters, recalling that he has known Kerry for more than two decades.
But he also highlighted lingering differences with Western nations, rejecting the idea that China should no longer be considered a developing country, even though it is now the world’s second-biggest economy.
That distinction in status is key: Under the terms of a 1992 UN climate treaty, developed countries are supposed to financially assist developing nations in their energy transitions and efforts to build resilience against climate shocks.
The Paris Agreement, Xie said, also “made it very clear that the responsibility to provide financing… rests with developed countries.”
The issue was at the center of a contentious debate at COP27 over the establishment of a ‘loss and damage’ fund to compensate the poorest countries already devastated by the consequences of global warming.
Floods in Pakistan this year, for example, displaced millions and caused $30 billion in damage and economic loss, according to the World Bank.
The European Union argued that China and other developing nations, such as Saudi Arabia, which have become wealthier, should be among the financial contributors.
The EU also insisted that the loss and damage fund be used to help the most “vulnerable” countries, meaning it could exclude China as a recipient of aid.
‘I hope it can be provided to fragile countries first. But the recipients should be developing countries,’ Xie said. ‘But give it first to those who need it most.’
Rich and developing countries came close to reaching an agreement on the issue on Saturday.
The Egyptian COP27 presidency has come under heavy criticism from delegates for its handling of the two-week conference, with complaints over a lack of transparency and drafts released at the end of the game.
But Xie said the hosts had worked “under the principles of transparent, open and party-driven consensus.”