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Proposed Lima decision doesn’t meet the needs of “half the planet”, critics say
One good reason why U.N. climate talks in Lima have dragged on into Saturday far longer than their planned Friday finish time is the thorny issue of loss and damage.
The term refers to the harm done by extreme weather events such as super typhoons, as well as more gradual climate change impacts, including loss of territory to rising seas and land spoiled by saltwater intrusion or creeping deserts.
When a new version of a draft decision to be taken in Peru was released in the early hours of Saturday morning, there was no reference to "loss and damage" as one of the issues to be addressed in a new global climate change deal due to agreed in Paris in a year's time.
This pushed many developing countries, and particularly the poorest ones, to reject the text, which is now being renegotiated.
Small Pacific island nation Tuvalu said the overwhelming message from the 48 least-developed countries was: "We need loss and damage in the text".
"This is a crucial issue for the poorest and most vulnerable," said Ian Fry, chief climate negotiator for Tuvalu. "Communities are suffering from floods and drought, storms and sea-level rise, and they are often left with nothing."
He called on government negotiators and ministers not to let the Peru climate conference "be the one that denied the poorest in the world".
Loss and damage has been a controversial issue at climate talks in the past two years, but many thought it had been largely settled with the establishment of the "Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage" in Poland a year ago.
There the United States argued strongly that loss and damage should be dealt with as part of adaptation to climate stresses, fearing it might be held financially accountable for climate damage as the world's biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases.
But developing countries had hoped the battle was won, with the mechanism now planning to start its substantive work next year.
IGNORING ‘HALF THE PLANET’
An earlier version of the decision text in Lima had mentioned "adaptation including loss and damage" as an element for the Paris text. That was an unacceptable shift backward for many of the poorest countries, but to see it vanish entirely from the latest version was a step too far.
At a public session on Saturday morning, nations ranging from El Salvador to the Solomon Islands lamented its absence.
El Salvador's representative said the text would not respond to "reality" without more weight for both adaptation and loss and damage.
"It doesn't meet the needs of half - or more than half – of the planet who are most affected by climate change," he said.
Nicaragua chimed in too, saying it simply didn't have the resources to face loss and damage from climate impacts, or to adapt to climate change.
In response, the United States' chief negotiator Todd Stern argued things that aren't in the approved decision text in Lima will be included in an annexed text containing proposals for the key elements of the 2015 deal.
Failure to produce a decision would represent "a major breakdown" in the climate talks, he added, saying there was no more time to dispute language.
'SOLD DOWN THE RIVER'
A few developing countries said they could live with the status quo, including the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Cook Islands and the Philippines, which has been battered by typhoons two years in a row during the climate talks.
But civil society groups in the Philippines were highly critical of their country's position.
"Representatives of the Philippine government threw its considerable moral weight behind a draft 'decision text' that sells Filipinos — and others most affected by climate change — down the river," said Gerry Arances of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.
Aid groups and adaptation experts called for reassurance on the position of loss and damage in the new climate deal
"Loss and damage is becoming a climate reality for many poor people and countries. A failure to address this critical issue in the 2015 agreement is unacceptable for the most vulnerable countries and would render the deal unjust," said Sven Harmeling, climate change advocacy coordinator for CARE International.
"That is why developing countries are pushing for loss and damage to be included here in Lima. Developed countries should not stand in the way," he added.
Other reasons developing countries said they opposed the text was because it did not pay adequate attention to adaptation, including financing for their plans to adjust to climate shifts.
The group of African countries, for example, told the conference on Saturday that adaptation, climate finance, technology, and help to build expertise should be given equal and balanced treatment in the text alongside issues such as limiting climate-changing emissions.
There has also been little progress in defining a roadmap for how to boost funding for adaptation and low-carbon development in vulnerable nations to $100 billion a year by 2020, as governments promised to do five years ago.
"For the poorest, this means they are being told to 'fend for yourselves; we don't care about you'," said Saleemul Huq, director of the Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development.
Update: The final decision approved at the Lima talks on Dec. 14 inserted a reference to loss and damage, recalling the decision to set up the Warsaw mechanism, and welcoming progress made towards its implementation in Lima. But it did not list loss and damage as one of the issues to be addressed "in a balanced manner" in the 2015 deal. Adaptation was given greater prominence, with the Lima decision "affirming" the "determination" to strengthen adaptation action through the new deal.
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