After 30 years of talk about forcing wealthy polluters to compensate those bearing the brunt of climate damage, the COP27 conference seems poised to act.
Speakers have frequently invoked the phrase “climate reparation” to describe the responsibility to compensate future generations based on past harms. That reflects a tradition as old as World War I, when certain nations were held responsible for paying for the clean-up, explains Lisa Vanhala, a political scientist at University College London who studies loss and damage negotiations.
But other nations want a fund for loss and damage within the UN. Among the fiercest advocates are some of the small island nations that pioneered the idea of loss and damage, who say any insurance plans cannot come at the expense of a grant-based program for affected nations. “As climate impacts become worse, some places will become uninsurable,” says Michai Robertson, who leads finance negotiations for AOSIS, a group of small island states.
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