The bill after the enormous floods in Pakistan is expected to land at around 30 billion dollars. It shines a light on one of the major issues of contention during the upcoming COP27 climate summit in Egypt: Who will foot the bill for losses and damages as a result of climate change.
For Pakistan, which accounts for only 0.8 percent of the world’s total emissions, the answer is simple. Climate Minister Sherry Rehman believes that the blame for the disaster lies with the countries that have become rich by burning fossil fuels – and that it is now time for them to open their wallets even further.
– People enjoy life in the West but someone here has to pay the price, says fellow minister Ahsan Iqbal at a press conference.
Rich countries have previously agreed to contribute money to help poorer countries reduce emissions and adapt infrastructure for the future climate. So far, however, the promise of $100 billion a year, in what is known as climate finance, has not been fully fulfilled – which has fueled distrust in the climate negotiations.
“People are losing their lives”
But many vulnerable countries are also pushing the issue of compensation for losses and damages that are already occurring as a result of heat waves, torrential rains, hurricanes and droughts.
However, Professor Saleemul Huq, director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, believes that climate adaptation and emission reductions are already yesterday’s problems.
– We have entered a new era of loss and damage due to human-caused climate change. People are losing their lives, their homes, their crops and their infrastructure and it’s happening here and now, he says.
The researcher: “We have failed”
At last year’s climate summit in Glasgow, the US and the EU rejected demands for a special fund to compensate poorer countries for losses. Instead, the most climate-vulnerable countries had to go home with a promise of a loosely defined “dialogue”.
– We have failed to reduce emissions so that we have major climate changes and we have failed to adapt our societies because we have had too little focus on that issue. Losses and damage then occur, says Mathias Fridahl, researcher in climate policy at Linköping University.