“We have struggled for 30 year[s] on this path and today in Sharm el-Sheikh this journey has achieved its first positive milestone … It is a downpayment and investment in climate justice,” Sherry Rehman, the climate change minister of Pakistan, said about the deal made at COP27 (the 27th Conference of Parties), the 27th so-called Conference of the Parties. From November 6th to November 20th, the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh hosted 110 governments.
One of these heads of state was President Biden, who insisted to his skeptical audience at COP27 that “thanks to the actions we’ve taken” the United States would meet its emission targets. Biden’s administration has, in fact, recently taken many important actions toward its climate goals. These actions include the Inflation Reduction Act, which invests 369 billion dollars in climate solutions and environmental justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent commitment to a sharp reduction of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas thirty times more potent than carbon dioxide. However, after Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, pulled out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, trust in the US climate policies has been low. Developing countries, who contribute little to climate change but suffer its brutal consequences demand more from big historical emitters like the U.S., namely compensation for loss and damage.
Thanks to COP27’s host Egypt, this issue was central to the discussions this year. After fifteen long days of talks, parties at COP27 made history when they agreed to the establishment of a long-awaited loss and damage fund, which would assist particularly vulnerable developing countries when fighting climate change’s disastrous effects. According to reporters at Inside Climate News, this “could be the biggest advance in global climate policy since the 2015 Paris Agreement.”
It wasn’t until November 19th, the day after COP27 was originally supposed to end, that the U.S. reversed its opposition to creating a loss and damage fund that would “establish new funding arrangements for assisting developing countries in responding to loss and damage, including a focus on addressing loss and damage by providing and assisting in mobilizing new and additional resources,” according to COP27 documents. COP27 also marks the first time the European Union has agreed to the fund.
While these discussions were going on, fourteen flood alerts were issued for Africa, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. After leaders and representatives of the Global North left Egypt, climate catastrophes continued to devastate the continent. Now, however, the Global North had a plan—and a commitment—to help.