The two week long climate convention at Bonn in Germany culminated yesterday with both the developed and developing nations debating over how climate reparations need to be handled.  The conference held at the headquarters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn was in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference (CoP27) due in November at Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh.

Even though progress was made in some technical areas the developing countries stood their stance of how they were affected by climate change caused by emissions produced by richer nations for the last century. They urged that compensation need to be put on the official agenda for discussions at the 27^th Conference of Parties (CoP27) but the European Union and US disagreed. They feel that if they were to pay for the historic emissions then it will put their countries on hook for hundreds of years to come.

The issue termed as “loss and damageâ€_x009d_ ( L&D) has become a running sore in these negotiations at this mid-year UN climate conference. Developing countries are historically the smallest polluters when considering greenhouse gas emissions. But the developed countries have refused to commit to L&D owing to the potential for endless litigation.

At various forums, developing nations have demanded their concerns around climate reparations be addressed as the disproportionate burden of climate change impacts their development goals. The voice over the need for a balance between mitigation and adaptation continue to be pain points for them. 

At the Global Stocktake, Hoesung Lee, Chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, reported that human activities have warmed the planet at a rate not seen in the past 2,000 years, putting the world on a path towards global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades. Also known as the 56th session of the subsidiary bodies (SB 56), the Bonn conference also had on agenda to take forward action items announced at CoP26 last year. The discussions that took place also highlighted important topics such as the need for more ambitious climate action, deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and enhanced resilience to adapt to the effects of climate change. Also important work has been launched on urgently scaling up mitigation ambition and implementation.

Courtesy: Twitter | @sunfloweryell0w