Aftab Khan felt helpless when torrential floods submerged a third of his native Pakistan.
Khan’s homeland was completely underwater. His friend rescued a woman who had walked barefoot, carrying her sick child, through stagnant flood waters for 15 miles. And Khan’s own mother, who now lives with him in Islamabad, was unable to travel home on washed-out roads to check her daughter was safe.
“These are heart-wrenching stories, true stories,” Khan, an international climate change adviser, told CNN. “I was heartbroken.”
Pakistan became the clearest example this year of why some countries are fighting for a so-called “loss and damage” fund. The idea is that the countries that have contributed the most to climate change with their global warming emissions should pay the poorer countries to recover from the resulting disasters.
Earlier this year, Pakistan simmered under a deadly heat wave that climate change has made 30 times more likely, according to the World Meteorological Organization. It is now reeling from the aftermath of the worst floods in living memory.
The South Asian country is responsible for less than 1% of the world’s global warming emissions, but it is paying a heavy price. And there are many other similar countries around the world.
Loss and damage will be at the center of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt this year, as low-emitting countries that are inundated by floods or see their islands sink into the ocean demand that high-emitting developed countries pay for this damage.
But it has been a contentious issue for years, as wealthy countries such as the United States fear that agreeing to a damages fund could open them up to legal liability and possible future lawsuits.
Climate activists in developing countries and a former top US climate official told CNN that time is running out, pointing to Pakistan’s waterfalls as the clearest evidence why a special loss and damage fund is needed.
The developing world is “not ready to protect itself, adapt and be resilient” to climate disasters, former White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy told CNN. “It is the responsibility of the developed world to support this effort. Commitments have been made but they are not being fulfilled.”
As a concept, loss and damage is the idea that rich countries, having emitted most of the gases that warm the planet, must pay for poorer countries that now suffer from climate disasters they did not create.
Loss and damage is nothing new. Developing countries and small island states have been pushing for such funds since 1991, when the Pacific island of Vanuatu first proposed a plan for high-emitting countries to funnel money to those affected by sea-level rise.
It took more than a decade for the proposal to gain momentum, even as much of Vanuatu and other small Pacific island nations slowly disappear.
In Fiji, the home island of climate activist Lavetanalagi Seru, it cost an average of $1 million to relocate communities due to sea level rise. Moving away from ancestral lands is not an easy decision, but climate change is having irreversible effects on the islands, said Seru, regional policy coordinator with the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network.
“Climate change threatens the very social fabric of our Pacific communities,” Seru said. “That is why these funds are required. This is a matter of justice for many of the small island developing states and countries like those in the Pacific.”
A major reason why this type of fund is controversial is that rich states worry that paying for such a fund could be seen as an acceptance of liability, which could trigger legal battles. Developed nations like the US have done it backwards in the past and are still dealing with the issue.
Khan said he understood why wealthy developed nations were “dragging their feet”. But he added that it is “very important for them to empathize and take responsibility”.
There has also been confusion over its definition – whether loss and damage is a form of liability, compensation or even redress.
“‘Reparations’ is not a word or a term that has been used in this context,” US climate envoy John Kerry said on a recent call with reporters. He added: “We have always said that it is imperative for the developed world to help the developing world deal with climate impacts.”
Kerry has pledged to have a discussion on a fund this year before the 2024 deadline to decide what such a fund would look like. And U.S. officials still have questions — whether it would come from an existing funding source like the Green Climate Fund or an entirely new source.
Kerry also sparked some controversy on the issue at a recent New York Times event when, in response to a question about casualties and damage, Kerry appeared to suggest that no country has enough money to help places like Pakistan recover from catastrophic climatic disasters.
“You’re telling me the government in the world that has trillions of dollars, because that’s what it costs,” Kerry said at the event.
But others say the money is there. It’s more a matter of priorities.
“Look at the annual defense budget of developed countries. We can mobilize the money,” Alden Meyer, senior partner at E3G, told CNN. “It’s not about money being there. It’s a matter of political will.”
At COP27, the biggest debate will be whether to create a dedicated financing mechanism for losses and damages – on top of existing climate finance meant to help countries adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy.
After climate-affected states called for a new loss and damage financing facility at COP26 in Glasgow last year, it is likely to be an official COP27 agenda this year. But even as wealthier countries such as the US and EU states have pledged to talk about it, there is little hope that countries will emerge from Sharm in agreement on a fund.
“Do we expect to have cash by the end of two weeks? I hope so, I would love to – but we’ll see how they achieve that,” Egypt’s ambassador Mohamed Nasr, the country’s chief climate negotiator, told reporters recently.
But Nasr also tempered expectations, saying that if countries are still haggling over whether to even put damages on the agenda, they are unlikely to make significant progress on a financing mechanism.
He said it was more likely that the damage and loss debate would continue during Sharm’s two weeks, perhaps ending a framework created for a funding mechanism – or clarity on whether funds could come from new or existing sources.
Some officials from climate-vulnerable countries have warned that if countries fail to reach an agreement now, the problem will be much worse later.
“For countries that aren’t on the front lines, they think it’s a distraction and that people should focus on mitigation,” Avinash Persaud, special envoy to Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, told CNN. “If we had done the mitigation early enough, we wouldn’t have had to adapt, and if we had adapted early enough, we wouldn’t have had damage loss. But we haven’t done those things.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how much money has been spent on relocating communities in Fiji due to sea level rise. It averages $1 million per community, according to Lavetanalagi Seru.
