Sunak Silent On Climate Cash For Most Vulnerable Nations

Rishi Sunak has dealt a blow to the developing countries hardest hit by climate change by shunning appeals for the UK to contribute towards reparations for the natural disasters caused by hundreds of years of industrial pollution.

- Saphora Smith And Andrew Woodcock

Demands for a fund to pay for the permanent loss and damage caused by extreme weather were discussed for the first time on the floor of the Cop27 climate change conference in Egypt, with calls for the UK and other rich nations to join Belgium, Denmark and Scotland in committing cash.

But the prime minister made no reference to the topic in his five-minute speech in the resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh, instead recommitting to a 2020 pledge of £11.6bn for climate funding over five years and tripling to £1.5bn the UK’s contribution towards measures to boost resilience against future disasters.

Handing over the presidency of the United Nations climate change process following last year’s UK-hosted summit in Glasgow, Mr Sunak insisted there was “room for hope” if the struggle against climate change becomes “a global mission for new jobs and clean growth” though renewable energy.

But his optimistic tone clashed with a warning from UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres that the world was “on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator”.

“We are in the fight of our lives, and we are losing,” Mr Gutteres told delegates. “Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.”

Former US vice-president Al Gore called for an end to the “culture of death” represented by fossil fuel extraction. “We continue to use the thin blue atmosphere as an open sewer,” he said. “It is getting steadily worse. We are not doing enough.”

In Glasgow, Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon took the symbolic step of committing £5m to an international “loss and damage” fund.