By Jennifer Collins and Heather Moore
Deutsche Welle
Egypt climate talks focus on financing for low-income countries so they can adapt to a warming world and pay for climate destruction.
Money and justice are at the heart of the climate talks in Egypt this year. Low-income countries are calling on richer nations to help pay for a move to a fossil-free future, and for the damage caused by the global heating they have done so little to cause.
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Richer, industralized nations have been resistant to the idea of creating a specific fund for loss and damage, because they fear it could put them on the hook for huge sums of money. But it has been added to the official COP agenda for the first time this year.
Some see the fund as a form of reparation paid by countries that have developed their economies by burning climate-warping fossil fuel for years at the expense of nations that have contributed little to historical emissions.
It shouldn’t be viewed as aid, said Emem Okon, executive director of Nigeria’s Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, a non-profit capacity building group.
“The wealthy countries must return to Africa, to communities, what they have taken from those communities,” Okon told DW from the climate conference.