Loss and Damage (Para 48) in Draft Decision reveals failure of COP 27 ?

The Draft Decision of the 27th Conference of the Parties to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which serves as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement recalls Article 2, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement, that provides that the Agreement will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances. It reaffirms the outcomes of all previous Conferences of the Parties to UNFCCC, Conferences of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol and Conferences of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. 

It notes the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including in forests, the ocean and the cryosphere, and the protection of biodiversity, recognized by some cultures as Mother Earth, and also noting the importance of ‘climate justice’, when taking action to address climate change. 

This draft decision has 100 paragraphs. It's paragraphs 44-48 deal with "Loss and Damage". It notes with grave concern, according to information in the contributions of Working Groups II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the growing gravity, scope and frequency in all regions of loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, resulting in devastating economic and non-economic losses, including forced displacement and impacts on cultural heritage, human mobility and the lives and livelihoods of local communities, and underlines the importance of an adequate and effective response to loss and damage. 

In paragraph 45, it expresses deep concern regarding the significant financial costs associated with loss and damage for developing countries, resulting in a growing debt burden and impairing the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Paragraph 46 welcomes the consideration, for the first time, of matters relating to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including a focus on addressing loss and damage, under the Conference of the Parties and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement and also welcomes the adoption of decisions -/CP.27 and -/CMA.4, on matters relating to funding arrangements responding to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change. 

In para 47, it welcomes the adoption of decisions -/CP.27 and -/CMA.4, establishing the institutional arrangements of the Santiago network for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change to enable its full operationalization, including supporting its mandated role in catalysing technical assistance for the implementation of the relevant approaches at the local, national and regional level in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, and affirms its determination to select the host of the secretariat of the Santiago network by 2023 through a selection process conducted in an open, transparent, fair and neutral manner in accordance with the process outlined in paragraphs 17-18 of decisions -/CMA.4 and -/CP.27. 

The paragraph 48 of the draft decision has been left blank to provide space "for funding arrangements decision". This reveals the outcome of COP-27. Unless this empty paragraph is filled with substantive content, COP-27 will be deemed a total failure. Some rich countries who are non-parties to several international environmental treaties and human rights treaties and who have been non-parties to Kyoto Protocol are resisting steps to meet the need for climate justice, equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. These countries who either own nuclear weapons or host them have have no sense of morality. Besides their position on liability for past climate damages and losses, their stance with regard to UN treaty on nuclear disarmament and binding UN treaty for transnational corporations and other business enterprises establishes their adversarial relationship with Mother Earth and natural persons as a consequence of their total capture by artificial persons, the body corporates.