U.N. Summit to Hear Call for Rich Nations to Pay 'Climate' Reparations
by Simon KentOfficials at the United Nations COP25 climate change conference in Madrid next week must consider implementing taxes on developed countries to transfer wealth to nations dealing with “the cost of drought, floods and superstorms made worse by rising temperatures,” more than 150 environmental groups said Friday.
The financial impositions being considered include U.N.-administered taxes on financial transactions, international air travel and fossil fuels.
In an open letter to the president of the COP 25 talks, Chile’s environment minister Carolina Schmidt, the organisations urged agreement on “the creation of a comprehensive financing facility, including debt relief, for developing countries experiencing such disasters.”
The U.N.-sponsored Madrid conference is set to be dominated by discussions on so-called “loss and damage” funding, with a sharp divide between developing nations and richer polluters over how finance should be structured.
Green groups this week claimed the increased pace and intensity of climate disasters, such as the twin cyclones that devastated parts of Mozambique this year, means that funding needs boosting to keep track.
They said the amount needed for loss and damage would top $300 billion annually by 2030.
“Without finance to help countries cope with climate-induced loss and damage, the most vulnerable parts of the world will sink deeper into debt and poverty every time they are hit by climate disasters they did not cause,” the letter said, as quoted by AFP.
President Donald Trump officially withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord last month as part of an election promise to voters.
As Breitbart News reported, as far back as June, 2017 Trump said he was looking forward to exiting the agreement.
The president spoke then of following through on his commitments to the American people.
“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord,” Trump declared.
Compliance with the accord could have cost the U.S. “as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025 according to the National Economic Research Associates,” said Trump. “This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs — not what we need…”
The Paris Climate Accord will form the basis for any future reparations as decided at COP 25. Almost 25,000 people and 1500 journalists will fly in to Madrid from Monday to attend the meeting.