Billions needed for climate loss and damage, say Friends

'Funding must be new and additional, not taken from development aid or priorities such as health and education.'

As Friends joined other climate activists for COP28 last weekend, to witness for continued action on the Loss and Damage Fund, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) cautiously welcomed a deal to help pay for the irreversible impacts of climate disaster.

But funding must be in the billions, said BYM, along with others in the Make Polluters Pay coalition, meaning more than the US$429 million pledged. Germany and UAE, which is hosting COP28, each pledged $100m to the fund, along with $245m from the EU and $75m from the UK.

Funding must be new and additional, not taken from development aid or priorities such as health and education, Make Polluters Pay said. The UK government must also put long-term arrangements in place through taxing the fossil-fuel industry, which it said has profited from this crisis.

A record number of fossil-fuel lobbyists got access to this year’s COP28 climate talks, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition. The UAE-hosted summit admitted at least 2,456 people affiliated with oil and gas industries.

Quaker Rupert Read and Liam Kavanagh, co-founders of the Climate Majority Project, said that ‘this hopeless COP contains a grain of hope: a climate summit whose petrostate hosts planned to use it as a platform for new oil deals? Now it’s so obvious that the system is failing, progress may finally be possible.’

The COP28 Day of Action in London on 9 December started outside the BP headquarters in St James’s Square, before moving on to BAE Systems to witness for a cleaner planet.

Quakers in Scotland helped organise an event outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, with live music, kids’ activities, and speakers. Michael Hutchinson, clerk of General Meeting for Scotland, called it ‘a dreich day and we got very wet! But inspiring to see a good turnout. As part of this event Quakers in Scotland and Christian Aid organised a silent vigil for people of all faiths and none, to uphold communities around the world who are bearing the brunt of climate breakdown and… policymakers in Scotland.’

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