Biden Agrees to Climate Reparations, Guess Who Pays

It looked like the great and the good who assembled in Egypt to haggle over climate change would not embrace a global loss and damages fund – otherwise known as climate reparations. The developed economies weren’t all on board and, even if they were, the problems of how to fund, administer and account for the tens of billions proposed for such an effort were just too big.

A funny thing happened on the last day of the climate talks. Not “haha” funny. More like “you’ve got to be kidding me” funny:

The agreement on loss and damage is a landmark moment in global climate politics — an acknowledgment that richer nations are responsible to the developing world for the harm caused by rising temperatures.

The lesson is never to underestimate the West’s capacity to feel guilt for its success. Or its ability to succumb to throw scarce taxpayer resources at…problematic…developing nations:

Just getting the issue on the formal negotiating agenda was seen as a milestone. Even then, it appeared unlikely that COP27 talks would result in a new loss and damage fund. 

“We have struggled for 30 years on this path and today, in Sharm El-Sheikh, this journey has achieved its first positive milestone,” said Pakistan Climate Minister Sherry Rehman. “The establishment of a fund is not about dispensing charity. It is clearly a down-payment on the longer investment in our joint futures.”

Make no mistake: This is absolutely about charity. Or more accurately, it’s about wealth transfers from the West to developing world governments that have a nagging tendency to be exceedingly corrupt (Pakistan, for example, ranks 140 out of 180 nations in the world on Transparency.org’s perceived corruption list for 2021 – worse than Russia, which clocked in at #136).

While the climate bureaucrats are busy congratulating themselves for establishing the reparations fund, the big questions about how to fund, govern and audit it remains undecided.

Which is an old-fashioned bureaucratic way of deciding to let some future climate bureaucrats decide how to handle all that at some unknown date.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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