{"id":25781,"date":"2023-11-21T00:25:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T20:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.syndicationbureau.com\/?p=25781"},"modified":"2023-11-27T01:44:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T21:44:17","slug":"at-cop28-a-chance-for-the-west-to-make-amends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syndicationbureau.com\/at-cop28-a-chance-for-the-west-to-make-amends\/","title":{"rendered":"At COP28, A Chance for the West to Make Amends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The West often engages in moral grandstanding when addressing critical global issues like climate change, emphasizing the need for action and accountability. But when it comes to taking responsibility for historic carbon emissions, the developed world often falls short of its obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This disparity between rhetoric and action has significant implications, particularly for vulnerable nations. The loss and damages fund<\/a>, a significant achievement of the COP27 summit last year in Egypt, highlights this disconnect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increasing severity, breadth, and regularity of climate calamities has disproportionately affected developing countries, as evidenced by the Global Climate Risk Index 2021<\/a>. Of the 10 most affected territories and countries between 2000 and 2019, all were in the developing world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The G77<\/a> and China played a pivotal role in including finance for loss and damages at COP27. The emphasis was on framing this mechanism as a global commitment rather than liability or compensation. The result was collective acknowledgment of the asymmetric impacts of climate change and a step toward rectifying these imbalances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the path to operationalizing the fund is fraught with obstacles. The impasse at an October meeting on the topic cast doubt over the process<\/a>, particularly concerning the fund’s practical implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, a breakthrough was achieved at a follow up meeting in Abu Dhabi earlier this month. The text adopted there<\/a> will form the basis of a final decision at COP28 in Dubai<\/a> in December. Even before that meeting starts, the deal on loss and damages already has the potential to become one of the meeting\u2019s greatest achievements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet even amid progress, the adopted text reveals three issues that hint at how difficult it will be to implement the fund. The success of COP28 in addressing these issues will be a test of the international community’s commitment to equitable climate action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first point of contention concerns identification of fund contributors. Developing nations advocate for financial commitments from developed countries, while the United States and Europe assert that emerging economies, notably China<\/a> and Gulf nations like Saudi Arabia<\/a>, should share financial responsibilities equitably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During preparatory meetings for COP28, the Saudi delegation reportedly referred to historical “failures on obligations and gaps in action<\/a>” by Western nations during and after the Industrial Revolution, an opinion shared by many leaders in developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n