Caribbean islands’ leader pleads for fossil fuel giants to pay compensation

Fossil fuel companies should be hit with windfall profits taxes to help rich nations pay developing nations compensation for climate disasters,global climate talks in Egypt have been told.

“The oil and gas industry continues to earn almost $US3 billion[$4.6 billion] daily in profits,” Gaston Browne,Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda,said.

Barbados PM Mia Mottley fires up her fellow developing country leaders at COP27.

Barbados PM Mia Mottley fires up her fellow developing country leaders at COP27.Getty

“It is about time that these companies are made to pay a global carbon tax on their profits as a source of funding for loss and damage.

“Profligate producers of fossil fuels have benefited from extortionate profits at the expense of human civilisation. While they are profiting,the planet is burning.”

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres backed taxing fossil giants,calling on governments to redirect super profits into the hands of those suffering from climate catastrophes as part of what he called a Climate Solidarity Pact.

Humanity has a choice:co-operate or perish. It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact – or a Collective Suicide Pact,” he said.

“The deadly impacts of climate change are here and now. Loss and damage can no longer be swept under the rug. It is a moral imperative. It is a fundamental question of international solidarity – and climate justice. Those who contributed least to the climate crisis are reaping the whirlwind sown by others.”

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley,whose fierce climate advocacy saw her named byTime magazine as of the 100 most influential people this year,made the case for loss and damage funding to developing nations on ground of both justice and practicality.

“We were the ones whose blood,sweat and tears financed the industrial revolution,” she said. “Are we now to face double jeopardy by having to pay the cost as a result of those greenhouse gases from the industrial revolution? That is fundamentally unfair.”

She added that,unless compensation was paid so that developing nations could build infrastructure to protect their populations from the worst of climate change,the refugee population would soar to a billion people by mid-century.

Wealthy nations have resisted focusing on loss and damage at meetings in the past but this year the Egyptian hosts backed calls from climate vulnerable nations to address the issue.

After 40 hours of debate it was formally put on the agenda over the weekend,with the support of Australian negotiators,although the Australian government has not made its position on the issue clear.

Scotland became the first nation to commit money into a loss and damage fund when it hosted last year’s talks. This week in Egypt it increased its commitment from £2 million to £5 million ($9 million).

A small group of European nations has also backed the call for a loss and damage fund,including Belgium,Germany and Austria,which has committed $US50 million.

Set against the cost of climate damage,the amounts raised so far are tokenistic.

“My country,Pakistan,has seen floods that have left 33 million lives in tatters and have caused loss and damage amounting to 10 per cent of[national] GDP,” Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN,Munir Akram,said.

It is estimated that the cost of climate catastrophes in 2021 alone reached $US270 billion.

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Nick O'Malley is National Environment and Climate Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is also a senior writer and a former US correspondent.

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