Scotland to pledge new funding towards loss and damage from climate change suffered by vulnerable countries

Nov 07, 2022

Scotland will announce new funding towards the loss and damage from climate change suffered by vulnerable countries that are beyond the realms of human adaptation, Sky News can reveal.

“We’ll be announcing a further financial commitment to loss and damage,” First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told Sky News during the COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

The additional money will look “in particular at non-economic loss and damage that many countries are suffering,” she said, which could include things like loss of culture and tradition.

Economic losses encapsulate things like loss of jobs from industries collapsing, loss of buildings to hurricane damage or loss of entire communities and towns as sea levels eat away at coastlines.

“That would be a further very significant part of Scotland’s determination to see real progress behind that issue that should have been dealt with many years ago,” she said.

During the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow last year, Scotland became the first developed nation to pledge finance towards the contentious issue. The promised sum of £2m was small but helped break a taboo around the issue. Since then, Denmark has promised 100 million DKK (£11.8m).

Further detail on the new funding is expected on Tuesday.

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Vulnerable nations that have done the least to cause climate change but are suffering the worst impacts have been demanding financial help for years. The rich, polluting world including the US and the EU has historically been wary of what they fear could be opening the floodgates to endless claims and accusations of liability.

But the devastating impacts of climate change have been so acute, they have found it difficult to ignore the need to address it. This year, the issue of funding for such losses made it onto the agenda at a United Nations climate talk for the first time.

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