At the annual United Nations climate conference in Dubai last year, the world’s countries launched a long-awaited fund for global climate reparations. This so-called loss-and-damage fund, which is supposed to compensate developing countries for the unavoidable harm wrought by climate change, received more than $650 million in pledges during the conference. It was lauded as a historic commitment to climate justice.
The fund’s strongest advocates — small island nations, African countries, and climate justice activists — intended it to help the poor nations that have been hit hardest by climate change pay for the many billions of dollars in damage that their negligible carbon emissions did little to cause. They argued that early-industrializing wealthy countries, which have emitted the lion’s share of carbon emissions historically, have a moral imperative to support developing nations coping with the effects of climate change.
But in the nearly 10 months since the U.N. conference, the fund hasn’t raised much beyond the initial $650 million pledge, save for an $11.7 m... Read more
