Countries agree 'loss and damage' fund to ratify COP27 deal

 

Those recommendations will include 'identifying and expanding sources of funding' - referring to the complex question of which countries should pay into the new fund.

Countries agreed to set up a fund to help poorer countries hit by climate disasters at the COP27 climate summit early on Sunday, but there have been delays in ratifying the overarching deal that underpins the global resolve to fight climate change. Hui.

After tense overnight negotiations, Egypt's COP27 presidency released a draft text for an overall agreement - and also called a plenary session to present it as a final, comprehensive agreement for the UN summit .

The session approved a provision in the text to establish a "loss and damage" fund to help developing countries bear the immediate costs of climate-fuelled events such as hurricanes and floods.

But it postponed many of the fund's most controversial decisions until next year, when a "transitional committee" will make recommendations for countries to adopt at the COP28 climate summit in November 2023.

Those recommendations would include "identifying and expanding sources of funding" -- referring to the complex question of which countries should pay into the new fund.

Calls by developing countries for such a fund have dominated the two-week summit, which has pushed the talks past their scheduled Friday end.

Shortly after full approval of the Loss and Damage Fund, Switzerland called for a 30-minute suspension of time for time to study the new text of the overall deal – specifically language relating to national efforts to cut climate-warming emissions, the Swiss representative said.

Negotiators late Saturday were concerned about the changes being discussed so late in the process.

The document, which forms the overall political deal for COP27, needs ratification from nearly 200 countries at the climate summit in Egypt.

In line with earlier iterations, the draft did not include the reference requested by India and some other delegations to reduce the use of "all fossil fuels". Instead it referred only to the phasing out of coal, as agreed at last year's summit.