The G77+ China group of 133 countries walked out of the United Nations climate change conference in Warsaw on the Loss and Damage mechanism after developed nations refused to agree to terms.
Loss and Damage is set to become a mechanism where the world’s developed economies provide financial assistance to the developing world as compensation for greenhouse gases caused by the industrialization of developed nations. It was created in Doha in 2012 at the annual UN climate change summit known as COP18. The Doha climate summit also adopted an extension of the Kyoto Protocol up to 2020.
In Wednesday’s session, G77+ China negotiator Juan Hoffmeister
walked out of a closed-door meeting when delegations from the
industrial block refused to agree that the mechanism for such
compensation is needed now and not after 2015 when a new climate
change agreement is expected to be signed in Paris.
Hoffmeister said that key elements of the mechanism were missing
from a weak draft.
“We want the draft to be strong. We are with G77. We support very
strong steps for loss and damage, and anything that does not
fulfill that should be highlighted,” Indian Environment
Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said after the walk out.
As part of the demands, the developing countries want developed
nations to honor a 2009 Copenhagen pledge to provide up to $100
billion by 2020 for environmental damage.
"The 100 billion is a goal we need to establish a very clear
roadmap," said Natarajan. "Unless that is provided for, it
will be impossible for us to take forward any meaningful
discussion and we feel the negotiations will be rendered
completely meaningless," she told journalists.
Representatives of the poorer nations argued that the financial
burden associated with global warming is out of reach for them.
Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete said while his country is
trying to allocate funds for climate change, the costs are
"just too high".
Poland's envoy Marcin Korolec, chairing negotiations, commented
saying that the discussion was "challenging".
"We could not have predicted the economic darkness that we
have all lived through for the past five years."
Another stumbling block in the negotiations is sharing the future
emissions curbs, as developing nations want to create a UN body
charged with compensating for environmental damage.
"Developed countries need to do more... now, and not transfer
all the burden of climate change to the poor of the world after
2020," said Natarajan.
Washington has opposed the position saying that a deal under
which "the developed countries would be treated in one way, in
one section of the agreement, and developing countries in a
different part of the agreement" was a "non-starter", US
negotiator Todd Stern said.
Stern also explained that Washington had contributed about $2.7
billion in 2013, "the highest number that we have had in the
last four years".
Russia’s climate envoy and presidential advisor Alexander
Bedritsky argued that a separate loss and damage mechanism is not
needed and that the new deal should be based on the principles of
the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“We believe that in the medium term, efforts should be
directed at improving the efficiency of existing adaptation,
technology and financing mechanisms to strengthen the capacity of
developing countries, including loss and damages claims, rather
than creating new mechanisms,” Bedritsky said, reiterating
Russia’s earlier position on climate change.
Last week at the start of the conference Russia’s Representative
Oleg Shamanov told reporters that “the issues of loss and
damage from climate change should be discussed in the framework
of existing adaptation mechanisms, technological and financial
assistance and capacity building.”
The EU representative Connie Hedegaard said that 1.7 billion
euros will be allocated for the year 2014-2015. "The EU
understands that the issue is incredibly important for developing
countries. But they should be careful about … creating a new
institution. This is not [what] this process needs," said
Hedegaard, as quoted by the Guardian.
"We cannot have a system where we have automatic compensation
when severe events happen around the world. That is not
feasible."
Last week at the start of the 12 day conference in Poland, the
G77+China group was discussing a Brazilian proposal that called
for the creation of historical responsibility for global warming.
“Our proposal is meant to make available for countries a metric
of their historical responsibility in terms of temperature rise.
It would be one of the elements in the future agreement,”
Brazil’s Ambassador Jose Antonio Marcondes de Carvalho explained
last week.
Under such framework the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change would be tasked with creating a methodology to calculate
countries total output of greenhouse gases since 1850 in
determining each nation’s historical responsibility for global
warming.
The US, EU, Canada, Norway, Israel, Switzerland, Australia and
New Zealand opposed Brazil’s plan with the US delegation arguing
that such an approach is flawed.
“Temperature is a lagging indicator and does not show up until
well after emissions have occurred,” Kim Carnahan said on
November 11. “Such an approach would provide some countries
with cover to act in a manner that is much less ambitious than
their current capabilities.”
Meanwhile, the US and Australia argued that there is no necessity
in a "loss and damage" mechanism to be separate from
existing systems of mitigation and adaptation.
“USA, EU, Australia and Norway remain blind to the climate
reality that's hitting us all and poor people and countries much
harder. They continue to derail negotiations in Warsaw that can
create a new system to deal with new types of loss and damage
such as sea level rise, loss of territory, biodiversity and other
non-economic losses more systematically," Harjeet Singh of
ActionAid International said as quoted by the Hindu.
The UN chief Ban Ki Moon has urged the negotiators to come to an
agreement. "Climate change is the greatest single threat
to peace, prosperity and sustainable development," Moon said
in Warsaw.
In an effort to keep global temperature from rising beyond 2
degree Celsius the UN chief stressed that a greater funding for
clean-energy development is needed.
“Our primary focus needs to be on launching and scaling up
mainstream solutions that will attract hundreds of billions of
dollars annually. The bulk of institutional investors’ assets are
in high-carbon investments.”
According to a report by the World Resource Institute,
developed nations have spent $35 billion in international climate
finance through the “fast-start finance” period between
2010 – 2012, exceeding the initial target of US$30 billion.
Five countries - Germany, Japan, Norway, Britain, and the US gave
a combined sum of $27 billion, adaptation funding received $5
billion, while mitigation received $22.1 billion.
The report also found that “a continued commitment to scaling
up climate finance is needed for both political and practical
reasons.”