Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The European Commission has proposed a climate reparations model at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference commonly referred to as COP27.
According to the proposal, the number of countries that would fill the reparations fund would be higher and the number of beneficiaries would be lower than initially called for, according to Reuters reporting on Friday.
Frans Timmermans, European Commissioner for Climate Action, noted “what we would propose is to establish a loss and damage response fund for the most vulnerable countries.”
More than 100 developing countries are calling for a climate reparations system, demanding payments for droughts, floods and other natural disasters.
Shauna Aminath, Maldivian Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Technology, welcomed the EC’s willingness to pay. “We’re very close to an agreement… let’s engage with one another and make this happen,” she concluded.
Sameh Shoukry, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, noted before the EC put forward its proposal that countries were “shying away from taking the difficult political decisions.”
Nabeel Munir, Ambassador of Pakistan to South Korea, described Timmermans’ proposal as good news, but pointed out that countries are divided on the idea.
Countries split
“A lot of divergent views are still there… for us, the success of COP27 depends on what we get on loss and damage,” he concluded.
According to the initial proposal, China would be one of the beneficiaries of the scheme as the largest greenhouse gas emitter.
The UN released its draft proposal on climate reparations on Thursday, before Timmermans presented EC’s idea.
UN’s proposal includes three options, with the first suggesting to establish the proposed fund, the second to delay the decision until the next summit and the third scrapping the idea.
Svenja Schulze, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, pointed out in an interview on Friday that China should pay into any climate reparations fund rather than be a beneficiary of it.
“China has 28% of the greenhouse gas emissions at the moment,” she noted and added “they must also contribute to dealing with the damage.”
Schulze stressed that China is trying to hide behind UN’s classification as a developing country.
