The United Nations climate agency on Saturday published a draft proposal for a deal to tackle the issue of “loss and damage” that said the COP27 summit would agree to launch a new fund to help countries cope with the cost of climate damage.
The draft – which the nearly 200 countries at the COP27 summit in Egypt will now consider, and potentially change, before deciding whether to approve – would agree to “establish a fund for responding to loss and damage”.Calls by developing countries for such a fund has dominated the U.N. negotiations over the last two weeks, pushing the summit past its scheduled Friday finish as countries struggle to strike a deal.
The draft proposal would kick many of the most controversial decisions on the fund into next year, when a “transitional committee” would make recommendations for countries to then adopt at the COP28 climate summit in November 2023.
Those recommendations would cover “identifying and expanding sources of funding” – referring to the vexed question of which countries should pay into the new funds.
Amide Dagnet, director of climate justice at Open Society Foundations and a former negotiator at U.N. climate talks, said the latest draft text was “better” than previous versions since it would clearly establish a fund, alongside other sources of financial support.
“It punts on critical definitional issues around who pays and who exactly benefits, but provides the roadmap,” she said.
