BONN, Germany (AP) — Environmental activists on Wednesday called on fossil fuel producers to contribute to a new fund aimed at helping poor countries cope with climate disasters.
The so-called loss and damage fund was a key achievement of UN climate summit last year in Egypt. Developing nations have long demanded more financial support for the impacts of global warming, which is historically driven by pollution from rich countries.
“It is the primary responsibility of countries to fill that fund, particularly those with the greatest historical responsibility,” said Rebecca Newsom of the environmental group Greenpeace.
“But to fill that fund on a large scale now, we need to speed things up,” he said. “The most obvious starting point is, of course, the fossil fuel industry, the creators of the crisis we are facing now.”
Oil, gas and coal companies have faced increasing criticism in recent years for continuing to extract fuels that, when burned, release planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, called earlier this year fossil fuel companies hold them accountable for the damage they caused despite knowing the harmful effects of your products
Negotiations on the creation of the loss and damage fund are a main focus of international climate negotiations which will take place in Bonn, Germany, this week. Some countries have balked at the idea of getting Big Oil involved from the start.
Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s chief negotiator, said there was a risk of “overloading the very delicate and, I would say, very sensitive discussion that is taking place” before the UN summit this fall in Dubai.
While Nasr said he was not opposed to contributions from the fossil fuel or aviation industry, these could be difficult to implement and the main focus should be on wealthy nations.
But Greenpeace’s Newsom contrasted the recent increase in oil company profits with the Increase in predicted damage worldwide from climate change.
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect the dots between increasing climate loss and damage around the world and exorbitant profits for fossil fuel companies,” he said.