It鈥檚 no wonder he鈥檚 frantic. As global climate change negotiations began again on Monday 11 November, the made a tearful speech begging the rest of the world to take firm action on climate change. Just days before, typhoon Haiyan devastated his family鈥檚 home city, Tacloban. Sa帽o told the conference his brother had been He made a similarly emotional speech during the previous round of negotiations last year, after typhoon Bopha struck his country. He has now begun in an attempt to urge action on climate change.
Despite Sa帽o鈥檚 passion, it is unlikely that much will happen at this year鈥檚 talks. The world鈥檚 governments are aiming to sign a global deal in 2015, and , Poland, is only a stepping stone towards that. What鈥檚 more, Australia鈥檚 new government is planning not only to abandon the country鈥檚 carbon pricing system, demolishing one of the world鈥檚 flagship projects to tackle climate change, but also to by between 5 per cent and 25 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020.
Just one major thing is supposed to happen in Warsaw. At last year鈥檚 summit in Qatar, governments agreed to set up a 鈥渕echanism鈥� to address loss and damage from climate change. That means if a country suffers harm from climate change that it had not been able to adapt to, for instance from an extremely severe typhoon, other countries would be obliged to help in some way 鈥� presumably with money or other aid. This year鈥檚 conference is supposed to agree how this will work.
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However, other items may well derail this issue. At the 2009 conference in Copenhagen, developed countries promised to pay large amounts of climate aid to the developing world. By 2020, these payments were supposed to rise to $100 billion a year, but after a promising start they are stalling. On 11 November, Oxfam released a report pointing out that 24 , and there is even less information available about next year鈥檚 money. That means developing countries are left in the lurch, unable to start adaptation projects because they don鈥檛 know when, or if, they will get any funding.
