The global south is demanding that rich countries pay for the climate damages they have caused. Join us in supporting their calls.

The impacts of climate catastrophe get worse with each passing month. 

This year alone, there have been tropical storms in Mozambique, and Madagascar; ravaging fires in Greece and Turkey; deadly heatwaves in India and Pakistan; unprecedented floods in Bangladesh and catastrophic drought in Somalia.

But those being impacted the most by climate chaos have done the least to cause it.

At international talks, the global south has called for rich, polluting countries to pay compensation for the damages they have caused, by setting up a fund for “loss and damage”.

Will you join us in supporting those calls?

What is loss and damage?

Blocs of countries, including the least developed countries and small island states, have regularly called for loss and damage finance at international talks.

They have highlighted how climate change, driven mostly by the high historic emissions of rich countries and polluting corporations in the global north, is causing widespread economic damage to their countries (as well as financially unquantifiable losses to societies and human life).

Countries like the UK therefore have a historic responsibility and duty to respond to these calls.

However, at COP26 and previous talks, rich countries have repeatedly blocked attempts to set up such a fund. At the latest climate talks in Bonn this June, rich countries tried to remove loss and damage from the agenda of COP27 altogether.

We can’t stand for this injustice. With COP27 taking place in North Africa, there is growing pressure from the global climate justice movement to use this historic opportunity to finally set up a loss and damage fund.

Join us in calling on the government to support a loss and damage fund for the global south.

Make polluters pay

Rich countries have repeatedly tried to avoid and back out of their responsibility to pay for the damage they’ve caused.

They have already failed to meet the climate finance target of transferring $100 billion a year to the global south by 2020, while governments have used loans and raided their aid budgets to inflate their contributions.

Some estimates suggest the UK should contribute $46 billion a year (1.5% of GDP) to climate finance - many others suggest higher figures. But while our government absolutely should be contributing more, we also need to make the polluting fossil fuel corporations, and the banks that fund them, stump up for the damage they’ve caused.

Instead of evading their historic responsibility for climate chaos, governments and corporations should be making reparations. Loss and damage is just one element of that, but it is an important first step towards justice.

Will you join us in supporting those calls?

In solidarity,
Daniel Willis
Climate campaigner, Global Justice NowRead more:

PS If you want to learn more about loss and damage and climate reparations, join our speaker tour The Burning Case for Climate Reparations, for supporters in London, Scotland, or our Sheffield. Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of global south countries at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen back in 2009 will be joining us at all three events.

Read more

[1] ‘The case for climate reparations is now irrefutable’, Daniel Willis, Open Democracy, March 2022

[2] ‘Financing justice? UK climate finance and how to increase ambition at COP26’, briefing, September 2021

[3] 'The burning case for climate reparations', Harpreet Kaur Paul and Tatiana Garavito, June 2022

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