“Under no Circumstances”: US declines paying climate reparations for developing countries

When President Biden took office, one of the first promises he made was that the United States, after four years of backsliding, would finally “meet the urgent demands of the climate crisis.” But two years later, John Kerry, the climate envoy of Biden, laid bare the truth of American climate policies. “No, under no circumstances,” he said in response to a question asking whether the US would pay climate reparations for developing nations, shutting down life-saving dollars for millions of people in vulnerable countries who never caused the problem.

Developing countries have long been pressing industrialized states for compensation for escalating natural disasters catalyzed by climate change. Wealthy countries’ economies are rooted in the natural resources of our planet. Even disregarding colonization in other continents, industrialized states are responsible for half of the world’s emissions, with the US accounting for 20% of the global total, according to a report by Carbon Brief. Yet despite their minimal share in CO2 generation, developing countries that lack the resources to fend off damage are on the front lines of the climate crisis.

The November 2022 COP27 climate summit proved a landmark victory when world leaders discussed climate reparations as a key part of their agenda. Natural disasters, such as the record floods in Pakistan that displaced 8 million people, appalled leaders of Western countries who subsequently flooded money into the 'Loss and Damage' fund.

These countries, of course, did not include the United States of America; the world's richest nation and largest producer of greenhouse gasses continued to refuse to pay for its historical debts. It was nothing short of humiliating when French President Emmanuel Macron pointedly stated, “pressure must be put on rich non-European countries…You have to pay your fair share,” in a half-veiled allusion to the U.S. Macron is concerned that consenting to the idea of loss and damage would open up unlimited lawsuits of liability and that the US continued to hold out for a week until finally accepting the existence of the fund by the end of COP27. Yet as Kerry’s statement on reparations shows, the US is clearly not going to deposit any money into the fund; even Paul Bledsoe, a climate advisor under Clinton, commented that “America is culturally incapable of meaningful reparations.” Never making these compensations to Native Americans or African Americans, America has made the prospect of reparations for climate impacts on foreign countries an unrealistic ideal.

The refusal to contribute to Loss and Damage fund is only the tip of the iceberg in America’s long history of shirking its share of responsibility for climate change. The promises of the U.S. and E.U. countries to mobilize $100 billion per year in climate finance to help poor countries combat climate change fall short by tens of billions of dollars annually. Even more motifying is the fact that, despite its emissions, population size, and wealth, the U.S. only contributed 3.6% percent of the $83.3 billion of the Loss and Damage fund in 2020. In fact, the underdelivery of the U.S. is so commonplace, that other countries know better than to expect anything concrete from the U.S. Richard Sherman, a delegate from South Africa said, “to be frank, we are not expecting anything from President Biden. They tend to promise a lot, pledge a lot, but deliver very little.”

Even more worryingly, the fact that none of the Republican candidates provided a direct response when questioned about the authenticity of climate change in the first GOP debate tells us that, under a Republican controlled house, hope for more action on mitigating climate change is systematically diminished.

We are running out of time. The window of opportunity to limit the worst impacts of climate change is closing. As a nation, it’s a time to show our determination, to show that we are moving in the right direction, to show that the world leaders know full well the scale of emergency we are facing. By avoiding its share of the duty, the U.S. isn’t just undermining the world founded on building trust and shouldering responsibility, it’s digging the grave for the whole of humanity.

Gina Zhao