Rich countries have decided to help the poor fight climate disasters

On November 20, the participants of the climate summit of the UN Conference on Climate Change COP27 in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh adopted a final agreement on the establishment of a fund to help poor countries affected by climate disasters. The COP27 summit began a day later than planned on November 7 due to disputes over its agenda and lasted two days longer than planned until the morning of November 20 due to disagreement between delegations over the final agreement. More than 30,000 delegates from 195 countries took part in the event. The main decision was the creation of a new “loss and damage” fund for the benefit of poor countries affected by climate disasters.

The European Commission in its communique noted that the European Union agreed to a compromise on COP27 in order to preserve the Paris Agreement of 2015 and protect those most affected by climate change. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, noted that the final agreement of the summit is just “a small step towards climate justice.” A number of countries have already made their promises to provide funding for the new fund, including Austria, Canada, New Zealand, France and Germany. Among the possible recipients, most likely, African countries: it is this continent, according to the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of October 2021, that is most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.