China is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases on the earth and India comes at quantity three.

The two international locations even have main economies, so then why is there a disagreement over whether or not they need to contribute to a fund to deal with the injury attributable to local weather change?

The query stays even after COP28 – this yr’s United Nations (UN) local weather change convention in Dubai – introduced a deal between international locations to start the operation of the fund and 18 international locations pledged cash for it.

A report launched in 2022 by the Vulnerable 20 Group (V20), which has 68 growing nations as its members, confirmed that 55 of its members (the remainder joined not too long ago) had misplaced $525bn (£414.2bn) due to local weather change over the past 20 years. This was one-fifth of their wealth.

China and India are usually not amongst these international locations however argue that they too have weak communities who will want monetary help from such a fund.

A 2022 UN report mentioned that by 2030, growing international locations would wish over $300bn yearly to battle local weather change. “Loss and damage finance needs are closely connected to our ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change,” it added.

The fund goals to supply monetary help to poorer nations which were hit by climate-related disasters – for instance, communities displaced by floods or rising sea ranges – in order that they’ll rebuild and be rehabilitated.

It is totally different from local weather adaptation funds as a result of loss and injury check with a scenario through which communities can now not adapt to climatic impacts or put together for it as a result of the injury has already been accomplished.

After years of disagreement between developed and growing international locations, the loss and injury fund was established in precept throughout final yr’s COP27 in Egypt.

The settlement is to start its operation at COP28. Fifteen developed international locations and a growing nation (COP28 host UAE) have made funding pledges totalling to round $660m up to now, based on the Natural Resources Defence Council that has been monitoring monetary pledges at COP28.

The US – a developed nation and the second largest greenhouse gasoline emitter on the earth – and different developed nations say China and India ought to be a part of them in not solely making important cuts in emissions for significant international local weather motion, but additionally contribute to the fund.

But China and India disagree, arguing their excessive ranges of emissions are a current growth when in comparison with the historic emissions of developed international locations just like the US and the UK.

They additionally declare they’re nonetheless growing international locations, as set out within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change signed in 1992, and subsequently really qualify to obtain the loss and injury fund they’re being requested to contribute to.

In the yr since COP27, counties have had heated debates about the best way to make the fund work, and eventually in October 2023 agreed on a set of suggestions.

The suggestions, now accepted by COP28, “urge” developed international locations to help the loss and injury fund, and “encourage” others to help it voluntarily.

The resolution additionally makes it clear that each one growing international locations are eligible to use for funding.

But negotiators say the choice has not ended tensions between developed international locations and main growing economies like China and India over whether or not the latter ought to pay for the fund or they need to obtain it.

“The sources of finance remain a major contentious issue that has been parked for now,” mentioned a negotiator, from a rustic within the West, who requested to not be named.

China overtook the US as the most important carbon dioxide (CO2) emitter in 2006.

But each China and India argue the local weather disaster was attributable to developed international locations emitting greenhouse gases from as early because the 1850s, when the commercial interval started.

The two Asian giants additionally level to the precept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which principally means all international locations have accountability to chop greenhouse gasoline emissions, however their share of accountability will depend on their growth wants.

Many civil societies and local weather campaigners have additionally supported that very same argument.

“The massive losses and damages we are seeing right now are the result of 30 years of largely foot-dragging by developed countries on reducing their emissions faster and providing climate finance to developing countries,” says Liane Schalatek, affiliate director at Heinrich Boll Stiftung, a US-based worldwide organisation that carefully follows loss and injury negotiations.

“To ask developing countries to contribute to the new fund on an equal footing with developed countries is morally wrong and disingenuous,” she argued.

Developed international locations, nonetheless, argue the grouping of nations is outdated and desires revising.

Countries had been labelled as developed and growing again in 1992. Critics say lots has modified since then, significantly with international locations like China and India which are actually each main economies and among the many prime greenhouse gasoline emitters.

And now with the UAE, a growing nation within the UNFCCC itemizing, having pledged $100m for the fund, they are saying an instance has been set.

“We hope not just China and India but also other countries like Saudi Arabia – developing countries according to the 1992 list – will see themselves more as contributors to the fund than recipients,” an nameless negotiator from a Western nation added.

Some small island states additionally echoed that message.

Michai Robertson, lead loss and injury finance negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States, argues there is a “moral responsibility to engage with the fund” that must be met by main economies equivalent to China and India.

“Having the words ‘encourage other parties to provide fund’ in the recommendation is an acknowledgement by the entire committee (including developed and developing countries) that we need beyond developed countries as well and other parties to be involved too.”

But it isn’t the primary time a local weather fund has taken a very long time to be established.

A coverage and advocacy officer I spoke to likens the controversy over the loss and injury local weather fund to a earlier local weather finance pledge that also hasn’t materialised.

“It is unsurprising that many developing countries view this as little more than a delaying tactic, given the decade-long trust deficit which lies at the heart of UN climate negotiations,” says Ross Fitzpatrick of Christian Aid, a poverty aid organisation.

“The trust deficit is best exemplified by the failure of wealthy nations to deliver on their previous pledge to provide $100bn in annual climate finance beginning in 2020.”

This $100bn local weather finance pledge is separate from the loss and injury local weather fund, and was made by developed international locations throughout the local weather summit in Copenhagen in 2009.

As lengthy as that pledge stays unfulfilled, main growing international locations will at all times have an argument for not making any contribution to the loss and injury local weather fund, says Aarti Khosla, the director of Climate Trends, a Delhi-based organisation that researches loss and injury negotiations and different local weather points.

“The principles of the convention (the 1992 UN climate convention) make a case for evolving responsibilities, meaning the definition of the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ also changes,” she says.

“But it is not simple for China and India to pay in the fund without the developed world having lived up to its previous promise.”

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