By Paul Homewood
Meanwhile China has quickly quashed expectations that they might actually pay something towards climate reparations:
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 9 (Reuters) – China would be willing to support a mechanism for compensating poorer countries for losses and damage caused by climate change, its climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said Wednesday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, but China later said that would not involve contributing cash.
Xie said China had no obligation to participate, but stressed his solidarity with thosecalling for more actionfrom wealthy nations on the issue, and outlined the damage China had suffered from climate-linked weather extremes.
"We strongly support the claims from developing countries, especially the most vulnerable countries, for claiming loss and damage compensation because China is also a developing country and we also suffered a lot from extreme weather events," Xie said, speaking through a translator.
"It is not the obligation of China but we are willing to make our contribution and make our effort."
A spokesperson from the Chinese delegation later said that China would not contribute financially. A Reuters translation of Xie’s original remarks showed he did not specify that China would contribute financially, but offered to "cooperate" with developing countries.
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/china-willing-contribute-climate-compensation-mechanism-chinese-climate-envoy-2022-11-09/?mc_cid=64bb2b0a99&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
The US had made China’s contribution to the fund as a condition for US agreement, so it appears that COP27 is already dead in the water.
There will no doubt be some fudge in the final agreement, intended to kick the can down the road with calls for more discussion next year. But I suspect the poorer countries are going to go home empty handed.
