The first amounts have been pledged for the fund to compensate for climate damage – including from Germany. Now Development Minister Schulze is calling on other countries to participate, especially China.
Following financial commitments from Germany and the United Arab Emirates for the fund to compensate for climate damage, Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze called on China and other countries to also participate. “China and other emerging countries should also follow the example of the United Arab Emirates and participate in the new fund,” Schulze told the Germany editorial network.
The Emirates’ decision to be the first Gulf state to pay into an official UN climate fund is a door opener. “In this way, we are overcoming the old division into a small group of classic industrialized countries that participate in the financing and the large rest,” said Schulze. “This precedent makes it clear: Countries like the Gulf states also have a responsibility. They emit a lot of CO2 themselves and can afford to support poorer states in dealing with climate damage.”
Germany pays $100 million
At the start of the World Climate Conference (COP28) in Dubai, Germany and the United Arab Emirates surprisingly agreed to provide 100 million US dollars (the equivalent of around 92 million euros) each to compensate for climate damage in particularly vulnerable states. This is the first time that money has flowed into the fund approved last year. Great Britain, the USA and Japan also made commitments.
At previous UN climate conferences, the focus for a long time was on the fight against the causes of climate change and measures to adapt to global warming. The concrete consequences of climate change, such as increasing floods and droughts, are already being felt massively by developing countries and small island states.
They have been demanding compensation payments for years because the culprits are primarily the richer industrialized and emerging countries. After industrialized countries pushed the issue to the sidelines for a long time, it was decided at the 2022 climate conference in Sharm-el-Sheikh to set up a new fund to compensate for losses (“loss and damage”).
Scholz travels to the climate conference
From today, heads of state and government from numerous countries will also be taking part in the deliberations at the UN Climate Change Conference. As part of a summit (Climate Action Summit), they should give more impetus right in the initial phase of the conference.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz also set off for Dubai. It is expected that he will particularly comment on the climate club, which Germany is driving forward, and whose members should play a pioneering role in climate protection.
In Dubai, climate activist Luisa Neubauer demanded that Scholz make a clear commitment to phasing out all fossil fuels. Otherwise there would be no chance of meeting the agreed climate targets. “There must be no loopholes or fake solutions,” Neubauer told the dpa news agency. “Scholz is therefore under maximum pressure. He is asked to prove that he is on board with the global phase-out of coal, oil and gas.”