The U.S. is softening its resistance to paying developing countries for loss and damages suffered from climate change, and it's pointing the finger at China's massive emissions as well
The U.S. is suddenly open to making rich nations pay reparations to countries suffering the ravages of climate change — but only if China ponies up, too.
John Kerry, special presidential envoy for climate, speaks during a briefing at the State Department on Nov. 2, 2022. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo Vulnerable countries and the Egyptian hosts of the 13-day U.N. climate conference have made access to climate compensation a central theme of the two-week gathering.
Under Kerry, the U.S. and China had been in regular communication over climate policy, but Beijing halted that collaboration in August in a diplomatic rebuke over House Speaker’s visit to Taiwan. Now, Kerry’s effort to pull China into the loss and damage issue are adding to worries that the fraught U.S.-China relationship spells trouble for the upcoming talks.
Long-time observers of the climate talks like Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University climate scientist and international affairs professor, question whether the U.S. tactic is designed to create a wedge between China and the developing countries that often negotiate as a bloc at the talks and take a contentious stance against the industrialized countries.
“The South-South cooperation from China is enormous,” said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, who has advised U.K. and EU climate negotiators and held a role on the U.N. Secretary-General’s climate team. China backed creating a specific fund in the eleventh hour of last year’s talks in Glasgow, Scotland, though under conditions that were quickly rejected by the U.S. and EU. Senior Biden administration officials said in a recent call that the proposal included financing from only developed countries and skirted language from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement that shields rich countries from legal liability for damage caused by their past emissions.
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