UK Backs Deal on ‘Loss and Damage’ Payments to Developing Countries Hit by Climate Change

Pakistan is currently leading a drive by developing nations to demand billions of dollars in compensation from rich countries for the impacts of global warming.

UK negotiators at the UN Climate Change Conference 2022 (COP27) in Sharm el-Sheikh have supported a last-ditch deal on “loss and damage” payments to developing countries that were hit by climate change.

According to British media, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is due to deliver a speech at the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering later on Monday to promise £65.5 million ($74.2 million) for green technology in developing nations.

Sunak is expected to emphasize that “by honoring the pledges we made [at last year’s COP26] in Glasgow, we can turn our struggle against climate change into a global mission for new jobs and clean growth”.

“And we can bequeath our children a greener planet and a more prosperous future. That’s a legacy we could be proud of”, the UK prime minister is expected to say.

The report follows two days of intense negotiations held by COP27 participants ahead of the Egypt summit to discuss a deal on economic cost of climate change, which is thought to stand at a whopping $1 trillion by 2050.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who took up his position as the COP27 president on Sunday, said later that day that a compromise was clinched after 48 hours of the talks, but that the discussion would now focus on “cooperation and facilitation” rather than “liability or compensation” related to the loss and damage fund.

“Inclusion of this agenda reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy with the suffering of the victims,” Shoukry said, adding that the COP27 attendees would now aim to reach a conclusive decision on loss and damage “no later than 2024”.

This came as an unnamed Downing Street source as cited by a UK media outlet as saying that Sunak planned to “scale up progress and support” for developing countries which were hit by the worst effects of climate change.

UK Labor Party joined calls for Britain pay global warming-related reparations to developing nations, with UK Shadow Climate Minister Ed Miliband describing it as a “moral responsibility”.

The developments were preceded by Sunak’s U-turn on his decision not to attend the COP27 summit after No 10 previously said that he was too focused on “depressing domestic challenges”, an apparent nod to the PM’s plans on hefty domestic tax rises and spending cuts due to be announced later in November.

The British PM made no reference to his previous reluctance to visit the COP27 when he tweeted last week that “there is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change” and “there is no energy security without investing in renewables”.

“That is why I will attend Cop27 next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future”, he added.

Developed countries have repeatedly opposed the idea of paying for the impacts of climate change, with the US and the EU blocking a proposal at the COP26 to establish a fund and agreeing instead to a "dialogue" on the matter.

Other developed countries’ stance on the fund softened following a spate of climate change-related catastrophic events, including the deadly floods in Pakistan that claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people earlier this year.

55 vulnerable countries previously estimated that their combined climate-linked losses over the last two decades totaled about $525 billion, or about 20% of their gross domestic product (GDP). A separate research suggested that such losses could reach $580 billion per year by 2030.