Denmark has announced a pledge to pay $13 million (about R234m) for loss and damage caused by climate change, becoming the first UN member state to pledge an exact amount, aiming to compensate developing countries for the destruction wrought by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis the world’s poor played little role in creating.
UN secretary-general António Guterres urged governments to tax Big Oil’s windfall profits and implored legislators to use the revenue to assist people enduring the devastating consequences of the worsening climate emergency during his opening remarks at the UN General Assembly.
Denmark announced that it would allocate roughly $13m to Africa’s Sahel region and other vulnerable areas hard-hit by extreme weather disasters.
Although this paltry sum pales in comparison to the more than $5 trillion (about R90 trillion) in unpaid damages that fossil fuels are estimated to cause each year, advocates welcomed the landmark announcement and expressed hope that other wealthy countries most responsible for greenhouse gas pollution would follow suit.
Danish Development Minister Flemming Møller Mortensen said the pledge was inspired by his visit to flood-ravaged parts of Bangladesh in April.
“It is grossly unfair that the world’s poorest should suffer the most from the consequences of climate change, to which they have contributed the least,” he said.
The pledge comes as hundreds of lives are being lost and tens of billions of dollars in damages and losses are mounting amid several catastrophes driven by climate chaos and inequality, from the drought-fuelled famine in East Africa and the deadly floods in Pakistan, to Hurricane Fiona, which has battered Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
“I saw for myself in Bangladesh this spring that the consequences of climate change need increased focus,” Mortensen said.
The Danish pledge includes more than $5m to support developing countries coping with climate-related losses, particularly those in the arid Sahel region, $4m towards disaster insurance and another $3m to support “strategic efforts” around loss and damage negotiations ahead of November’s UN COP27 climate conference in Egypt.
“Yale Environment” reported that “loss and damage remains an unresolved issue in UN climate talks, with countries in the Global South urging wealthy nations, historically the biggest emitters, to pay for the rising toll from worsening droughts, floods, and storms. Wealthy countries have largely resisted this pressure, seeking to avoid accepting legal liability for climate change.”
Last year, Scotland became the first government to pay for loss and damage, putting nearly $3m towards helping vulnerable nations cope with climate change. But as part of the UK, Scotland is not a UN member. Denmark is the first member state to make such a commitment.
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