"Loss and Damage" issue on the COP27 agenda

The UN's annual climate change summit COP27 has officially gotten underway in Egypt. This year's conference is hosted in Sharm el Sheikh from 6-18 November, calling on countries to move from "pledges to an era of implementation"

Over the next two weeks, negotiators from nearly 200 countries will prod each other at COP27 to raise their clean energy ambitions, as average global temperature has already climbed 1.2 degrees Celsius since the industrial revolution.

Delegates at the the U.N.'s COP27 climate summit in Egypt agreed to discuss whether rich nations should compensate poor countries most vulnerable to climate change for their suffering. Poor countries facing climate hazards want the United States and other industrialized nations to compensate them for the harm caused by greenhouse gases.

The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change.

Delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step toward what are sure to be fraught discussions. Inclusion of the agenda item "reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of the victims of climate induced disasters," said COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt.

The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream.

Because the definitions are broad, it’s hard to calculate exactly how much money loss and damage would entail. One frequently cited study estimated that developing countries could suffer between $290 billion to $580 billion in annual climate damages by 2030, even after efforts to adapt. That could rise to $1.7 trillion by 2050.