At a New York Times event last month, the Biden administration’s climate envoy John Kerry caused a stir when he appeared to reject the idea of the US compensating other countries for the loss and damage they have suffered. at the hands of climate change. He told the audience that it is more important to focus on preventing future climate change and adapting to a warmer world than to undo the damage that has already been done.
The loss and damage, which is the term used by international climate negotiators for the harmful effects of 1.2 degrees Celsius of warming already occurring around the world, is estimated to cost anywhere between $290 and $580 billion. per year by 2030. Kerry essentially argues that the price is so high that even rich countries will bear it, ignoring their huge contribution to climate change so far. (The US alone is responsible for 20 percent of historical carbon emissions.)
“You tell me the world government has trillions of dollars, because that’s the cost,” he said.
But just a month later, Kerry appears to have changed his tune – if only slightly. Earlier this week, he told reporters that the US would not “block” talks on loss and damage at COP27, this year’s iteration of the United Nations’ annual climate change conference.
“How do you do it in a way that actually generates money, gets a system in place? We’re totally in favor of that,” he said of his country’s position on funding related to loss and damage.
For the first time, the US appears ready to discuss financial arrangements that could compensate other countries for loss and damage. Kerry’s recent comments are in line with statements by other senior administration officials, who told reporters last week that the US is willing to participate in negotiations related to loss and damage funding. These statements come at a time of increased pressure from developing countries and civil society groups, increased media attention, and high-profile climate change-induced disasters. , such as recent floods that left a third of Pakistan’s land under water.
The statements mark a measurable change in the US position – but one that may not lead to tangible progress on the issue. While the rhetoric may sound condescending at a time when the clamor for loss and damage funding is louder than ever, the statements by senior officials appear to be carefully calibrated to leave room for negotiators. of the US to slowly walk the COP27 issue, which will happen. next month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
In particular, US officials have expressed a preference for using existing United Nations channels designed to discuss loss and damage – even though the channels are carefully designed (mostly at the behest of the US) to to guarantee discussion alone, rather than concrete steps. They also appear to prefer to discuss the use of established international funding streams for a wide variety of climate-related issues, rather than agreeing on the need for developing countries to establish a new fund dedicated solely to loss and damage. Finally, the US appears to be trying to define loss and damage in a broad way that focuses mostly on the future effects of climate change, rather than the damage that has already been done and is inevitable in the future. That definition may disconnect the term from its widely understood connection to climate change.
As a result, the seemingly new US position on loss and damage may not be all that different from previous approaches. Concerned that recognizing loss and damage could open a Pandora’s box of unlimited liability for the nation, the US has historically used its bully pulpit to downplay or completely shut down discussion of the loss and damage at hand. in developing countries. When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of leading climate experts from around the world, finalized a report on the effects of climate change last year, the US opposed any mention of the “loss and damage,” arguing instead that the more generic term “effects” should be used. And at international talks in Bonn, Switzerland, this summer, the US argued against a new financial mechanism to deal with loss and damage, insisting that existing financial structures would be be used instead.
“The US is dragging its feet and doesn’t even want to acknowledge the issue,” said Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at the Climate Action Network, an international coalition of more than 1,800 environmental groups. . “The loss and damage is a report card of 30 years of inaction.”
In last week’s call, senior administration officials made it clear that they are not yet ready to support a new fund for loss and damage. Over the years, many climate funds have been set up to channel money to developing countries for infrastructure projects that will help them lower emissions and adapt to climate change. The most prominent of these funds is the Green Climate Fund, or GCF, which was established as a result of a 2010 pledge by developed countries to provide $100 billion annually to developing countries. Other funds include the Adaptation Fund and the Global Environment Facility, which was established more than two decades ago to help developing countries adapt to climate change and deal with various -different environmental challenges, respectively.
But none of these funds specifically compensate countries for the loss and damage they face as a result of global warming. For years, developing countries have argued that the scale and complexity of the issue requires a separate targeted fund that can quickly deploy resources when disasters caused by climate change strike, while also being able to respond to slow onset events such as sea level rise. get up Developing countries want to prevent new financing efforts from taking money from previous measures, and stop them from delivering in the form of loans that will put countries with unsustainable debt.
Senior administration officials directly told reporters it was premature to say the US would support a separate fund. They said instead that the US is interested in looking at different financial solutions that can compensate countries for loss and damage, including existing funds such as the Adaptation Fund and GCF. Officials also said they want to spend the next two years identifying gaps in loss and damage funding and figuring out how to bridge them.
Surprisingly, previous efforts by other countries to repurpose existing funds for loss and damage have been met with U.S. opposition. At COP25 in 2019, Michai Robertson, a negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, led the charge to restructure the GCF to include funding for loss and damage. But that effort came to nothing because of opposition from the US and other developed countries.
“They completely rejected it,” Robertson said. “To say we can’t have it in the GCF one time, and then to say, ‘Oh no, but we can’t have it outside the GCF the next,’ it’s like, then where? What do you want us to do?”
US officials also want the COP27 conversation on loss and damage to be within the parameters of the Glasgow Dialogue, a small agreement between developing and rich countries “to discuss arrangements for to fund activities to prevent, mitigate, and respond to loss and damage.” The Dialogue is a concession agreed to by developing countries at the end of COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, last year, after their demand for a separate funding stream was shot down by the US and other rich countries. .
The Dialogue requires countries to meet once a year until June 2024 to discuss different approaches that can be taken to address loss and damage. It is a one-way process that does not require countries to actually agree on any specific outcomes. Robertson attended the first of the meetings, which took place in June this year, and said it consisted of a three-day workshop that included breakout groups and presentations from experts.
“Dialogues are dialogues,” Robertson said. “They talk to each other, and they don’t have the mandate to come up with a solution. This is a workshop. This is a very difficult modality to come down to something concrete. “
Given the limitations of the annual Dialogue, Singh argued that it is “shameful that the US says the Glasgow Dialogue is enough.”
“We cannot solve the climate crisis just by talking about it,” he said. “In fact, it’s unfortunate that the US is only interested in talking and not providing any real support to the people.”
Despite the forward-looking loss and damage discussions within the Glasgow Dialogue, administration officials appear to be trying to downplay the definition of the term “loss and damage” itself. US officials often emphasize that they want to “prevent, reduce, and resolve” loss and damage, while representatives from developing countries mainly discuss how to “deal” loss and damage. The difference is an important one. In this context, “avert” and “minimize” are synonyms for climate mitigation and adaptation, respectively. The former refers to efforts made to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the atmosphere, and the latter refers to strategies aimed at managing the effects of climate change.
Certainly, mitigation and adaptation can help reduce loss and damage from climate change. But the deliberate use of “prevention and mitigation” language is an attempt to shift the focus away from funding for existing loss and damage and retrain it to mitigation and adaptation for the future, according to Singh and Robertson.
In a recent New York Times event, Kerry said that “the most important thing we can do is stop, slow down enough that we avoid loss and damage. And the next most important thing we can do is to help people adjust to the damage they’re already in. Senior administration officials reiterated that point in last week’s call.
“Every mitigation project and every adaptation project you look at, you can look at it through the lens of loss and damage,” Robertson said. While he recognized the interlinkages between adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage response, Robertson said the US and other developed countries are muddying the waters by using language that emphasizes the need for “prevention and mitigation” of loss and damage. “It’s a lot of linguistic acrobatics,” he said.
