Developing countries will be paid per degree – Newspaper Kommersant No. 216 (7417) of 11/22/2022

The annual UN climate conference (COP27) has ended in Egyptian Sharm el-Sheikh. Its main result is the creation of a fund to compensate the poorest developing countries for losses from irreversible climate change. In terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the world, progress is less noticeable – the conference resolution essentially repeats the wording of last year’s summit in Glasgow. Russia achieved an implicit mention in this statement of nuclear energy as one of the options for solving climate problems.

The annual UN conference on climate change in 2022 (Sharm el-Sheikh, November 6-18) again failed to meet the allotted two weeks and, dragging on for more than a day, ended only on the morning of November 20. The main disputes among the delegates revolved around the financial track “Losses and Damage” and the wording of the final statement.

Let us clarify that losses and damage are understood as the irreversible consequences of climate change – as the loss of part of the territory by states or the destruction of infrastructure and ecosystems.

So far, climate finance has mostly focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions or adapting to climate change. Developing countries (who consider themselves less responsible for climate change) have been talking for many years about the need to compensate them and “direct losses” – and it was on COP27 that a fund was eventually created to compensate for such losses and damage.

Developed countries will contribute money to this fund voluntarily. “Developing countries that are especially vulnerable to various effects of climate change” will be able to use the collected funds (this wording was adopted so that only the poorest and most vulnerable developing countries (that is, not China or Saudi Arabia, for example) could apply for the fund’s funds). ) Promises to provide funding for the fund were made by Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Canada, New Zealand, France, Germany, Scotland, among others.

During the two weeks of the conference, a number of other initiatives were announced: the replenishment of other climate funds, the launch of international programs for financing the energy transition (investment in renewable energy sources, support for workers in the fossil fuel sector) in South Africa, Indonesia and Vietnam.

In addition, more than $2 billion was promised to African countries for the restoration of land fertility and water supply.

Among the informal outcomes of COP27 is the resumption of the climate dialogue between the US and China (was terminated after the visit of the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in August), as well as the promise of the newly elected Brazilian President Lula da Silva to preserve the Amazon rainforest.

At the same time, in terms of reducing emissions, the climate summit can hardly be called successful. The final wording on fossil fuels is just the same as last year’s, phasing out coal use and eliminating inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. More ambitious initiatives, such as the proposals of India and a number of other countries to mention in this context not only coal, but also gas, or to reach the global peak of gas emissions by 2025, were not included in the final resolution. “As a result, the main initiative to reduce emissions is moving to the level of countries, regions and businesses,” Alexei Kokorin, head of the climate program at WWF Russia, told Kommersant.

Note that on the final night of the conference, Russian representatives spoke out strongly against reducing the use of all types of fossil fuels, arguing that this could exacerbate the energy crisis.

Also, in their opinion, each country can independently decide how to reduce emissions – for the Russian Federation, their absorption by forests and other ecosystems remains important. In the final version of the COP27 decision, in addition to renewable energy, “low-emission” energy is also mentioned (we are talking primarily about nuclear energy), which was extremely important for Russia, which continues to insist on the principle of technological neutrality. However, according to Alexei Kokorin, this addition is unlikely to be of great importance, according to him, “unlike fossil fuels or renewable sources, such mentions in the final text of the UN conference are unlikely to become a signal for investors, since the world’s main investor The nuclear power plant still stands for the state.”

Angelina Davydova, Sharm el-Sheikh