Pakistan's catastrophic floods have led to renewed calls for rich polluting nations, which grew their economies through heavy use of fossil fuels, to compensate developing countries for the devastating impacts caused by the climate crisis.

The currently favored term for this concept is "loss and damage" payments, but some campaigners want to go further and frame the issue as "climate reparations," just as racial justice activists call for compensation for the descendants of enslaved people.

Beyond the tougher vocabulary, green groups also call for debt cancellation for cash-strapped nations that spend huge portions of their budgets servicing external loans, rather than devoting the funds to increasing resilience to a rapidly changing planet.

"There's a historical precedent of not just the industrial revolution that led to increased emissions and carbon pollution, but also the history of colonialism and the history of extraction of resources, wealth and labor," Belgium-based climate activist Meera Ghani told AFP.

"The climate crisis is a manifestation of interlocking systems of oppression, and it's a form of colonialism," said Ghani, a former climate negotiator for Pakistan.

Such ideas stretch back decades and were first pushed by small island nations susceptible to rising sea levels -- but momentum is once more building on the back of this summer's catastrophic inundations in Pakistan, driven by unprecedented monsoon rains.

Nearly 1,600 were killed, several million displaced, and the cash-strapped government estimates losses in the region of $30 billion.

- Beyond mitigation and adaptation -

Campaigners point to the fact that the most climate-vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsible -- Pakistan, for instance, produces less than one percent of global greenhouse emissions, as opposed to the G20 countries which account for 80 percent.

The international climate response currently involves a two-pronged approach: "mitigation" -- which means reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases -- and "adaptation," which means steps to alter systems and improve infrastructure for changes that are already locked in.

Calls for "loss and damage" payments go further than adaptation financing, and seek compensation for multiplying severe weather impacts that countries cannot withstand.

At present, however, even the more modest goal of adaptation financing is languishing.

Advanced economies agreed to channel $100 billion to less developed countries by the year 2020 -- a promise that was broken -- even as much of the funding that was mobilized came in the form of loans.

"If our starting point is that the global North is largely responsible for the state of our planet today," said Maira Hayat, an assistant professor of environment and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

"Then why should countries that have contributed little by way of GHG emissions be asking them for aid -- loans are the predominant form -- with onerous repayment conditions?"

"If the language is upsetting for some, the next step should be to probe why that might be -- do they dispute the history? Or the present-day implications of accepting certain historical pasts?"

- Point scoring? -

Not all in the climate arena are convinced.

"Beyond a certain rhetorical point-scoring that's not going to go anywhere," said Daanish Mustafa, professor in critical geography at King's College London.

While he also blames the Global North for the world's current predicament, he says he is wary of pushing a narrative that may excuse the actions of the Pakistani leadership and policy choices they have taken that exacerbate this and other disasters.

The World Weather Attribution group of climate scientists found that climate change likely contributed to the floods.

But the devastating impacts were also driven "by the proximity of human settlements, infrastructure (homes, buildings, bridges) and agricultural land to flood plains," among other locally driven factors, they said.

Pakistan's own emissions, while low at the global scale, are fast rising -- with the benefits flowing to a tiny elite, said Mustafa, and the country should pursue an alternative, low-carbon development path rather than "aping the West" and damaging itself in the process.

The case for "loss and damage" payments received a recent boost with UN chief Antonio Guterres calling for "meaningful action" on it at the next global climate summit, COP27 in Egypt in November.

But the issue is sensitive for rich countries -- especially the United States, the largest emitter of GHGs historically -- which fear it could pave the way for legal action and kept language regarding "liability and compensation" out of the landmark Paris agreement.

Bangladesh PM denounces 'tragedy' of rich nations on climate
New York (AFP) Sept 24, 2022 - A country of fertile, densely populated deltas, low-lying Bangladesh is among the most vulnerable nations in the world to climate change.

But the urgency of the situation is not being matched by actions of countries responsible for emissions, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said.

"They don't act. They can talk but they don't act," she told AFP on a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

"The rich countries, the developed countries, this is their responsibility. They should come forward. But we are not getting that much response from them. That is the tragedy," she said.

"I know the rich countries, they want to become more rich and rich. They don't bother for others."

Bangladesh has produced a miniscule amount of the greenhouse gas emissions that have already contributed to the warming of the planet by an average of nearly 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The Paris accord called for $100 billion a year by 2020 from wealthy nations to help developing nations cope with climate change. That year, $83.3 billion was committed, including through private sources, according to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development figures.

One key issue facing the next UN climate summit, to take place in Egypt in November, is whether wealthy nations also need to pay for losses and damages from climate change -- not just to pay for adaptation and mitigation.

"We want that fund to be raised. Unfortunately we didn't get a good response from the developed countries," Hasina said.

"Because they are the responsible ones for these damages, they should come forward," the 74-year-old added.

Wealthy nations have agreed only to discuss the loss and damage issue through 2024.

This year's General Assembly featured repeated calls for climate justice. The leader of tiny Vanuatu urged an international treaty against fossil fuels while the prime minister of Pakistan warned that floods that have swamped one-third of his country could happen elsewhere.

- Questions on Rohingya -

Climate is not the only issue on which Bangladesh sees inaction from the West.

Some 750,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017 after a scorched-earth campaign against the minority group by troops in neighboring Myanmar, a campaign that the United States has described as genocide.

While the world has saluted Bangladesh for taking in the refugees -- along with 100,000 who fled earlier violence -- attention has shifted since the Covid-19 pandemic and now Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"As long as they are in our country, we feel that it is our duty," she said. But for Bangladeshi hosts, patience is running thin, she said.

Michelle Bachelet, then the UN human rights chief, said on a visit in August that there was growing anti-Rohingya sentiment in Bangladesh.

"Local people also suffer a lot," Hasina said. "I can't say that they're angry, but they feel uncomfortable."

"All the burden is coming upon us. This is a problem."

The Rohingya refugees, who are mostly Muslim, live largely in ramshackle camps with tarpaulins, sheet metal and bamboo.

Bachelet on her visit said there was no prospect of sending them back to Buddhist-majority, military-run Myanmar, where the Rohingya are not considered citizens.

But in her interview, Hasina signaled that there were few options other than for the Rohingya to reside in camps.

"It is not possible for us to give them an open space because they have their own country. They want to go back there. So that is the main priority for everybody," Hasina said.

"If anybody wants to take them, they can take them," she added. "Why should I object?"

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UN chief wants 'action' to address climate loss, damage payments
United Nations, United States (AFP) Sept 22, 2022
The United Nations chief said Wednesday it was time for "meaningful action" on the issue of compensation for damage wrought by the climate crisis, especially in developing countries. Ahead of the forthcoming COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi - the latter appearing by video link - co-hosted a meeting of world leaders for "frank exchanges" on climate action. "My messages were stark," Guterres told reporters at the UN ... read more