COP27 approves Loss and Damage Fund, but remains lacking

The 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Convention ended early this morning in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

The document with the conclusions of the COP27 creates a specific financial mechanism to compensate poor countries, which are suffering from extreme weather events caused by climate change but have not contributed to its causes. The poorest nations, notably the group of small island countries, have been calling for a Loss and Damage financing mechanism for decades.

However, the usual divisions between rich and poor countries meant that the meeting ended without substantive agreement on what should be the main talking point – how to accelerate cutting greenhouse gas emissions so as to prevent global warming from exceeding 1.5oC this century.

“The creation of a specific fund to compensate poorer nations for losses caused by extreme weather events was a fair advance. But at the same time it is evidence that in some cases the effects of climate change are already irreversible. Therefore, on the whole, the overall outcome of COP27 can be considered disappointing. The final text does not demonstrate the necessary ambition to reach the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris Agreement and the so-called implementation plan is weak and incipient. The greenwashing of countries and companies and the misalignment between science and politics have never been so clear as at this COP”, analyzes Maurício Voivodic, WWF-Brazil’s general director.

“COP27 also disappointed in its treatment of civil society and the absence of a Climate March in the city streets is the greatest evidence of how much the freedom of citizens was curtailed by the Egyptian government”, he adds.