This year’s annual climate talks faces a very important decision that'll be a reflection on if the UN climate process continues to be fit for purpose.
The agenda item with this decision is a overview of the Warsaw International Mechanism (Wim) on Loss and Damage, which sounds quite mundane but is of immense importance towards the reality of how we accept tackle climate change in the future.
Let me explain why.
As lots of people will now bear in mind, because of the initiative of the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, we are now transitioning from anticipating a climate-changed world to actually residing in a climate emergency world.
The year 2023 will in hindsight be seen as the tipping point. We are able to now clearly observe adverse impacts of climate change due to the truth that the worldwide atmospheric temperature has risen more than 1C due to emissions of greenhouse gases.
Many cities, parliaments yet others have asserted that we're now inside a climate emergency, most recently the European parliament.
The area of the UN climate process where these declarations of climate emergency is best may be the topic of loss and damage from human-induced climate change. We already see types of loss and damage in climate disasters all over the world: just within the last month lives and homes happen to be destroyed in fires in Australia, king tides within the Marshall Islands and floods in Venice.
At Cop19, held in 2013 in Warsaw, Poland, all countries decided to setup the Wim to deal with these losses. A professional committee was established and a 5 year workplan.
It is this Wim which will be reviewed at Cop25 and further decisions made on which to complete next.
The developing countries, led through the four sub-groups on most vulnerable countries – namely minimal Developed Countries (LDC) Group, the Africa Number of Negotiators (AGN), the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and also the Latin American group (AILAC) – have been arguing for a while for establishing funding for compensation for the victims of climate change. But civilized world have confined discussions to insurance saying it is the only mechanism they will consider.
Cop25, after 2023, the entire year of the climate emergency, it's time for developed countries to drop their unwillingness to allow the words like liability and compensation to be used in the negotiations.
The recent promise of the weather emergency by the European Parliament comes down to acceptance that loss and damage from climate change has become clearly happening. This involves their negotiators at Cop25 acknowledge the implications for vulnerable countries that bear little responsibility for global warming.
If they fail to offer the vulnerable countries’ interest in funding for loss and harm to compensate the victims of global warming then that declaration will be worthless.
