The fossil fuel industry — which is responsible for a large share of planet-warming gases — is “feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits,' the U.N. secretary-general said.
“Loss and damage are happening now, hurting people and economies now, and must be addressed now,” Guterres said, adding that 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are produced by the 20 largest economies.Mohamed Adow, director of climate and energy at the think tank Power Shift Africa, said “putting right a wrong is what climate change action is all about.”
“Taking the profits of climate destruction to address the loss and damage they have wrought would be an excellent first step,” Adow said in an email., hope that “loss and damage” — as it’s known in climate negotiations — will be prioritized at the upcoming U.N. climate summit in Egypt in November, known as COP27.
Guterres, who recently returned from viewing Pakistan’s flooding, “experienced a profound sense of what the issue of ‘loss and damage’ really means for people on the ground in their everyday lives,” said Pakistani climate scientist Fahad Saeed. “If we in Pakistan are responsible for less than 1% of emissions, why must we carry the costs of this devastation?” Saeed said in an email. The United States, meanwhile, is responsible for 21% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions since 1959, according to figures by the Global Carbon Project, a group of scientists who monitor carbon pollution.
Many smaller nations were left disappointed at the previous summit last year when richer countries, such as the United States and in Europe, Earlier this year, COP27 President Sameh Shoukry hoped that discussions on loss and damage at the summit would be" “And the longer we see emissions rising,” he added, “the need for it will only intensify.”Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy at the United Nations, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Dana Beltaji in London contributed to this report.
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