Experts from the South Asian region have expressed mistrust against the developed countries over loss and damage financing negotiation at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) scheduled in November in Egypt.
They stressed creating a larger and unified voice of the least developed and developing countries altogether to press home the loss and damage financing demand.
Experts made the observations at a webinar, “The way forward for loss and damage fund: from international developments to impact on local communities”, organised by Climate Trends and International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD).
Farah Kabir, Bangladesh country director of ActionAid, expressed her mistrust over the unending climate negotiations that have been going on for over two decades in the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention over loss and damage compensation.
She said, “Loss and damage is real. A household has been devoured by the river 26 times, and every night before going to sleep, members of the household are perpetually scared fearing the next erosion. Meanwhile, the climate negotiation is going on for the entire 26 years debating how the household can be saved.”
“Only 5-7 handful polluters are prolonging this COP negotiation intentionally for their interest while we are facing the losses and stresses,” she added.
Harjeet Singh of CAN International said, “The fight of loss and damage is a story of last 30 years of failure and inaction. We need to assess the climate change impact at different levels and across policies. Hence, COP27 is going to be a major event for gaining a loss and damage financial facility and to put forward the notion of climate justice.”
“If the developed countries do not come with a solution for current vulnerabilities how we can put trust in their commitment which will come into effect in the next 30 or 50 years,” he added.
At the last climate change conference, COP26, the negotiating bloc G77 & China proposed a solution to the gap in finance available to address their needs in the form of a Loss and Damage Finance Facility (LDFF) which would be able “to provide new financial support under Article 9 of the Paris Agreement, in addition to adaptation and mitigation finance to developing countries to address loss and damage”.
However, the agreement could not be secured for the LDFF’s establishment or a process to do so. Instead, the Glasgow Dialogue (GD) was established which presently remains to be defined with clear milestones and outcomes.
Saleemul Haq, director of ICCCAD, said, “We have entered the era of climate change and the consequences are evident. COP27 presidency has accepted loss and damage as provisional agenda.”
“It is time to put forward the issue of loss and damage finance as a high priority in upcoming COP27. We have to either make it or break it. We must focus on collaboration, solidarity and knowledge exchange across countries,” he added.
“Two decades ago no one wanted to hear about adaptation finance; they only wanted to talk about mitigation finance. So, in case of loss and damage financing, we will not stop creating pressure. We will continuously ask for climate justice,” Haq further said.
“If the loss and damage issue is adopted as an agenda, it will pave the way to the negotiation on who will pay and how. We have to compel them to pay,” he added.
Runa Sarkar, from IIM Calcutta, said, “We need to have a credible mechanism to address loss and damage and that should be transparent to counter the questions raised by the developed countries.”
Anurag Danda from World Wildlife Fund-India, Shari Kaliyamurthi Balamurugan, chief environment officer of the West Bengal government, and Shreyansh Jain from Accenture, among others, also addressed the webinar.
