LANDMARK DEAL ARRAYED AT UN’S COP27 SUMMIT

2022 Cop27 summit sign in Egypt

November 24, 2022 | By Colin O. Jarrett |

A historic deal has been struck at the UN’s COP27 summit that will see rich nations pay poorer countries for damage and economic losses caused by climate change. It ends almost 30 years of waiting by nations facing huge climate impacts. But developed nations left dissatisfied over progress on cutting fossil fuels.

The UK’s Alok Sharma says a clear commitment to phase-out all fossil fuels is not in this text. Sharma was president of the previous COP summit in Glasgow. This year’s talks in Sharma el-Sheikh, Egypt, came close to collapse and overrun by two days.

Luke-warm applause met the historic moment the “loss of damage fund” was agreed in the early hours of Sunday as a confusing and often chaotic 48 hours left delegates exhausted.

It is, though, a huge symbolic and political statement from developed nations that long resisted a fund that covers climate impacts like flooding and drought.