The 27th session of the Conference of the Parties on climate change organized by the United Nations (COP27) has wrapped up its two-week proceedings at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. The conference parties are the nearly two hundred countries that agreed to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP27 culminated in the parties’ approval of an agreement to establish a climate change “loss and damage” fund for developing countries, in what amounts to reparations for the havoc from natural disasters these countries allegedly suffered as a result of climate change.
Many of the details of the new fund are yet to be worked out, such as identifying the public and private sources of the funding, the fund’s governance structure, and upon what basis it would be decided who should pay what amount. But one thing is clear. Another massive global wealth redistribution scheme is born.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres supported the demand for “loss and damage” payments to developing countries as a matter of “climate justice.”
Developing countries used the two-week conference to blame the tragic floods, fires, heat waves, droughts, and other natural disasters ravaging their countries on climate change caused by prosperous developed countries’ emissions of greenhouse gases to dangerous levels. Since the developing countries have been hurt the most from a crisis they did not create, the developing countries demanded compensation from the greenhouse gas-emitting prosperous countries for all the “loss and damage” the developing countries allegedly suffered.
Such reparations payments are only fair, according to the developing countries’ reasoning, because the prosperous countries caused the crisis while benefiting the most economically from using gas-emitting fossil fuels for so many years. This payback to the developing countries would be on top of the billions of dollars already contributed or pledged so far by governments and private benefactors to aid developing countries in their climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres supported the demand for “loss and damage” payments to developing countries as a matter of “climate justice.” He cited the massive floods in Pakistan this year as a tragic example of why an international “loss and damage” funding mechanism is needed right away. “Getting concrete results on loss and damage is a litmus test of the commitment of the governments to the success of COP27,” Secretary General Guterres said at the opening session of the COP27 conference.
Fossil fuels have been essential in enabling developing countries to speed up the pace of their industrialization and modernization of agriculture
In his remarks at the conclusion of the conference, Secretary General Guterres referred to climate change as “climate chaos” that he called “a crisis of biblical proportions.” After his warning of a coming apocalypse, the Secretary General congratulated the COP27 parties for “the decision to establish a loss and damage fund and to operationalize it in the coming period.” He promised that the “UN system will support this effort every step of the way. “
Scratch the surface and one sees yet another massive wealth distribution scheme on a global scale, which some of its proponents justify by pinning the blame for much of the world’s problems, including climate change, on successful capitalist countries.
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, for example, complained during his remarks at COP27 that “the Venezuelan people must pay the consequences of an imbalance caused by the major Western economies, who have polluted and continue to pollute the planet for the benefit of a few." The socialist dictator who brutalizes and starves his own people claimed that the “imbalance and the environmental crisis created in nature are comparable to the conditions of inequality and injustice that capitalism has created against humanity.”
Maduro went on to say that setting up a “fund for climate losses and damages” is an urgent priority but must be set up in a way “so that compensation for environmental damage reaches the most affected peoples.” Given Maduro’s personal history of corruption, including his alleged involvement in embezzlement from a state-owned oil company, any such compensation that Venezuela receives will most likely end up enriching Maduro himself and his cronies.
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Although China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the second largest economy in the world today, it is still considered a “developing country” by the UN and the World Trade Organization
Giving foreign aid is a policy choice. Giving charity is a personal choice. But committing to fund a “loss and damage” fund opens up a Pandora’s Box for governments and businesses in developed countries. It may be viewed as an admission of direct liability for causing climate change and the natural disasters that climate change spawns, irrespective of any pro former disclaimers.
There is also the question of how far back in time we should go to ascribe the natural disasters of today to emissions from centuries or even decades ago. A sizable portion of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by industrialized nations during the 19th century and a substantial portion of the 20th century may have already dissolved into the oceans or otherwise disappeared from the atmosphere. Methane may only persist in the atmosphere for around 12 years.
Moreover, the developing countries complaining about excessive greenhouse gas emissions causing natural disasters in their countries bear some responsibility themselves, at least since the 1980’s. Developing countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa have relied increasingly in recent years for their economic growth on fossil fuels, including coal to generate electric power. Fossil fuels have been essential in enabling developing countries to speed up the pace of their industrialization and modernization of agriculture.
But such economic growth has come with a price. According to the Center for Global Development, “Developing countries are responsible for 63 percent of current carbon emissions.” Historically, according to another study, the “contribution rate to the rising air temperature since pre-industrial times” is 56 percent from global greenhouse gas emitted by developed countries and 44 percent from such gas emitted by developing countries.
India has joined other developing countries in demanding compensation for “loss and damage” for which it is partially responsible itself as a major emitter of greenhouse gases
These developing countries have made a conscious policy choice to prioritize economic growth over a cleaner, healthier environment, presumably to improve the standard of living for their peoples and thereby foster more political stability. It is an understandable choice, but the tradeoff is that developing countries themselves are contributing to the climate change problem that they seek to blame entirely on already prosperous developed countries. In addition, deforestation is a major problem in developing countries, which has worsened climate change.
China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world today. China’s emissions constitute nearly one-third of human-created greenhouse gases, exceeding the combined total emitted by the United States, Europe, and Japan. China is making things worse by continuing to build more coal plants at a rapid pace.
Following China and the United States in that order, India ranks as the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Nevertheless, India has joined other developing countries in demanding compensation for “loss and damage” for which it is partially responsible itself as a major emitter of greenhouse gases.
Although China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases and the second largest economy in the world today, it is still considered a “developing country” by the UN and the World Trade Organization. The Chinese regime is using COP27 to thread the needle between aligning itself with other developing countries as a victim of climate change and projecting an image of itself as a benevolent donor.
Barasso: “Sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to a U.N. sponsored green slush fund is completely misguided”
"We strongly support the claims from developing countries, especially the most vulnerable countries, for claiming ‘loss and damage’ compensation because China is also a developing country and we also suffered a lot from extreme weather events," China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said at the conference. "It is not the obligation of China but we are willing to make our contribution and make our effort." Precisely what contribution China has in mind China's climate envoy did not say.
As a developing country, China could be in a position to become a beneficiary of funds for its own alleged “loss and damage” as a result of “extreme weather events." The drafters of the “loss and damage” agreement tried to preclude this option indirectly by including language in the text that would target the funding to “developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.” They hoped this squishy language would be sufficient to exclude China as a recipient of funding, given its economic prowess and ability to take care of itself. However, China is very adept at manipulating multilateral agreements and institutions to serve its own selfish interests.
Globalist Western European government leaders fell in line and supported the idea of funding a “loss and damage” wealth redistribution program. The Biden administration at first held back but ultimately buckled and hopped aboard to help fund the “loss and damage” gravy train. Even so, French President Emmanuel Macron complained that a single “loss and damage” fund was “insufficient.”
Developing countries have already received trillions of dollars over the years from more prosperous developed countries in foreign assistance, some of which has been squandered and plundered by corrupt, incompetent government leaders. And there are the billions of dollars flowing from governments and private entities in developed countries to developing countries to fund their climate change mitigation and adaptation projects.
But developing countries demanded more. They insisted that they were entitled to be fully compensated for their "loss and damage” from climate change, which they blamed solely on well-off countries who must therefore pay the entire bill. The developing countries’ pressure campaign paid off. Western European governments and the Biden administration agreed at the conclusion of COP-27 to establish funding arrangements for responding to the developing countries’ alleged “loss and damage” from climate change.
“Sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to a U.N. sponsored green slush fund is completely misguided,” said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. “The Biden administration should focus on lowering spending at home, not shipping money to the U.N. for new climate deals. Innovation, not reparations, is key to fighting climate change.”
Senator Barrasso is right. With the Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives beginning next year, President Biden will hopefully not receive a dime in appropriations to help fund this latest world-wide wealth redistribution scheme.
