A victory and a warning before COP28

Last year, the United Nations’ annual climate talks ended with a landmark deal to compensate poor countries for the destruction caused by climate disasters worsened by rich countries’ emissions.

Almost none of the details behind the so-called loss and damage fund had been finalized, including which countries and financial institutions would contribute and where the money would go. But last weekend, some of the key provisions were announced at a meeting in Abu Dhabi.

Under the agreement, the fund would launch next year, initially housed at the World Bank, and developing countries would have a seat on its board. World leaders will be asked to ratify the agreement the plan during the United Nations climate talks known as COP28, which begin in Dubai later this month.

The deal marks a turning point in the long quest to get rich countries, which have burned most of the fossil fuels that have warmed the planet, to help poor countries that bear the least debt but will suffer the most from climate change .

“We have been debating loss and damage for a long time,” said Avinash Persaud, climate adviser to the Prime Minister of Barbados, who represented Caribbean countries at the talks. “This was a crucial point where we came together and said, ‘Yes, we will set up a fund, yes, we will help countries recover and rebuild.’ It was an important step forward.”

While the deal can be seen as progress for climate diplomacy, the torturous process exposes some of the tensions that are likely to shape the debate at COP28.

An unsatisfactory deal

There was virtually no loss and damage fund.

An attempt to announce details of the fund last month in Aswan, Egypt failed when negotiators reached an impasse. That forced countries to meet again at last weekend’s emergency meeting in Abu Dhabi.

The negotiations were tense, with developing countries pushing for more concrete commitments and more specific language, while rich countries, including the United States, tried to keep the final agreement non-binding. The US tried unsuccessfully to insert language stating that contributions to the fund would be voluntary.

“I don’t think anyone got everything they wanted,” Mr. Persaud said.

The initial target size of the fund is expected to be $500 million. That’s a significant amount, but a pittance compared to the trillions of dollars that would be needed to finance large-scale climate disasters in the coming years.

The US delegation eventually signed the final agreement, but immediately undermined it with comments questioning its commitment.

“We regret that the text does not reflect a consensus on the need for clarity on the voluntary nature of contributions; All contributions to funding schemes, including to a fund, are on a purely voluntary basis.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The fund will be housed at the World Bank, which is focusing on its climate work under new President Ajay Banga. But there is still a deep-seated skepticism about the bank largely controlled by developed countriesespecially the United States, and has a long history of burdening poor countries with debt.

Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s climate advisor, bluntly: “it should not be managed by the World Bank.”

But while many were unhappy with the deal, the alternative was even worse.

“If we had failed, it would have broken the COP,” Mr Persaud said. “It wouldn’t have been sustainable at all to say we’re going to push developing countries to mitigate, we’re going to push developing countries to invest more in adaptation, but we don’t really care about loss and damage. .”

‘Multilateralism is alive’

All these tensions will be on display in Dubai later this month.

Many developing countries are tired of being told that they must reduce their emissions at the expense of much-needed economic growth. And they are still waiting for hundreds of billions of dollars in financing to transition to clean energy and protect against climate change, which richer countries promised more than a decade ago but never fully delivered.

Rich countries are reluctant to accept responsibility for climate damage, fearing that they could face unlimited liability. And while the United States and other industrialized countries increase their use of renewable energy, they continue to expand their production of fossil fuels.

Nevertheless, the agreement to advance the Loss and Damages Fund suggests that the international community still has the capacity to collaborate on efforts to adapt to a rapidly warming world, if only just barely.

“Multilateralism is alive, perhaps faintly, but it is alive,” Mr Persaud said. “It’s not dead. It can still generate positive momentum. And thus we’re going into COP with that behind us.

Related: Saleemul Huq, a widely respected Bangladeshi-British scientist who played a leading role in efforts to get rich countries to compensate developing countries for the harmful effects of climate change, died on October 28 at the age of 71.

A climate success story

Hoboken, NJ, is a water magnet. Most of the city occupies a floodplain along the Hudson River. Some scientists have done that prediction that, with rising sea levels, much of Hoboken will be Atlantis by 2100.

But for more than a decade, this city of about 60,000 has been trying to thwart fate — and it’s making progress, writes Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. This involves raising power lines, building water reservoirs and new sewers, and redesigning to cope with rising sea levels and heavier rainfall.

When a powerful storm hit the region in September, Hoboken easily handled the deluge.

New York City, on the other hand, came to a standstill, in an important signal that the city is unprepared for what is to come. My colleague Winston Choi-Schagrin reported on the 100,000 New Yorkers living in coastal neighborhoods who are already suffering from chronic “sunny day” flooding during high tides.

About half of them live in the working- and middle-class enclaves around Jamaica Bay.

“I think we are doing the right things, but I think the challenge we face is whether we are able to do them quickly enough,” Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, told reporters. , to Winston. “Part of it is about how many resources the city can dedicate to these things in an environment of limited budgets.”

As Michael wrote: cities will flood. The true measure of their preparedness will be how well they can prepare and how quickly they can recover.

—Manuela Andreoni

Other climate news

• Generous tax credits and trade protections are finally ending a long-term decline in solar energy production in the United States.

• Extreme weather helps invasive species, a new study shows.

• In keeping with tradition, King Charles III, an outspoken climate supporter, gave a speech to Parliament outlining the prime minister’s priorities, which include increasing fossil fuel extraction this year.

• Electric school buses, which have large batteries and are parked much of the day, can help utilities store solar and wind energy to avoid power outages.

• An electric plane’s test trip from Vermont to Florida could herald a new era of battery-powered air travel.

• Nigeria’s decision to end fuel subsidies is starting up solar energy projects to replace dirty diesel generatorsreports Bloomberg.

• Facing setbacks for wind farms, the Biden administration said clean energy projects are still on track to meet 2025 targets.

• Offshore oil has made tiny Guyana the fastest growing economy in the world, but some locals fear their country is becoming a subsidiary of Exxon. The Wall Street Journal reports this.

• Rich countries have signed a series of deals with emerging economies to help them switch from coal to clean energy, but early stumbles show the process won’t be easy. Grist reports.