Who should pay for climate disasters?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
There’s a big, contentious question at the heart of this year’s COP27, the U.N. climate change conference: Should richer countries foot the bill when it comes to climate disasters?
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Thousands of government officials from all over the world have gathered in Egypt for the 27th annual U.N. climate change conference, which started this week. Amid a backdrop of protests — on climate change and the Egyptian government’s spotty human rights record — the focus is on the commitments each country made at last year's conference to curb their emissions.
But there’s another debate brewing. Developing nations — the most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change — want financial support as they deal with the fallout. And they’re looking to wealthier nations, which have disproportionately emitted carbon into the atmosphere. Climate reporter Sarah Kaplan joins us to discuss how a potential “loss and damages” fund would work, and where we are on a changing global climate.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I am sitting under a table with my blazer over my head because this conference has tens |
| 0:13.2 | of thousands of people roaming around and airplanes flying overhead. |
| 0:18.3 | That's Climate Reporter Sarah Kaplan. |
| 0:21.0 | And there's not that many quiet places to record an interview. |
| 0:24.5 | So Sarah, where are you right now? |
| 0:27.9 | I am in the media center at the COP27 venue in Sharmoche, Egypt on planet Earth. |
| 0:38.6 | Important distinction. |
| 0:43.4 | Earth is top of mind at COP27, which stands for the 27th meeting of the Conference of |
| 0:49.1 | Parties. |
| 0:50.1 | It's this big yearly United Nations conference that began this week. |
| 0:54.7 | From right now, thousands of government officials and others from all over the world have gathered |
| 1:00.6 | in Egypt to negotiate the best ways to combat climate change. |
| 1:05.8 | Sarah says it's been chaotic, occasionally inspiring, and also somewhat terrifying. |
| 1:13.1 | I mean, this COP happens at a time when the toll of climate change and the sort of very |
| 1:21.9 | dangerous trajectory that the planet is currently on becomes quite clear. |
| 1:31.0 | We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing. |
| 1:34.8 | And Secretary General Antonio Gueterra has talked about that in his opening remarks at |
| 1:39.7 | this COP. |
| 1:40.7 | He described how urgent it is that we shift the direction that we're heading in. |
| 1:48.2 | Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. |
| 1:51.5 | Global temperatures keep rising. |
| 1:54.2 | And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible. |
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