Nicola Sturgeon pledges £5m in climate change reparations to developing nations

Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will pay £5 million of climate change reparations to developing nations damaged by global warming as she took credit for pressurising the world’s wealthiest nations to follow suit.

Although she has no seat at the top table at the Cop27 summit in Egypt, the First Minister claimed that her government’s decision to commit £2 million for “loss and damage” at last year’s Glasgow gathering set an example.

Speaking after arriving in Sharm el-Sheikh, she said it was “arguable” that the issue would not have been on the agenda at this year’s summit without the pressure she exerted 12 months ago.

She will on Tuesday announce another £5 million of reparations, taking the total to £7 million, that could be used by developing countries to address the direct impact of climate change or non-economic effects such as a “loss of cultural identity”.

Her intervention came after UK negotiators backed a last-minute agreement to address loss and damage payments to countries badly affected by climate-related disasters.

Pakistan is leading a push by developing countries, including Bangladesh and the Maldives, for compensation from richer countries responsible for most of the world’s pollution.

The UK backed the issue being on the Cop27 agenda during two days of negotiations ahead of the Egypt summit and is understood to accept that a deal must be done over the economic cost of climate change, which is forecast to reach $1 trillion by 2050.

Ms Sturgeon has faced criticism over her government’s record on climate change not matching her rhetoric, with her deputy slashing £133 million of energy efficiency funding only days before she flew out to Egypt.

Her attempts to portray herself as a climate change leader at last year’s Glasgow summit suffered a major blow when it emerged her government had missed its renewable heat target by nearly half.

But she argued that she and her government had played a crucial role in getting the developed world to sit up and pay heed to calls for them to pay reparations to developing nations that have suffered from the impact of climate change.

“Certainly the action the Scottish government took at the outset of Cop26 in Glasgow I think has given a real momentum boost to the issue of loss and damage. You’ll hear plenty of people not associated with the Scottish government say that,” she told BBC Radio Scotland.

“It is arguable that it wouldn’t be on the agenda this year had we not put such a focus on it in Glasgow, but that’s a first step. It’s really important we keep that momentum going.”

‘Governments can act now on loss and damage if we want to’

Speaking ahead of a conference appearance at a panel discussion on Tuesday on loss and damage, she said: “The funding Scotland has announced today is a small sum in terms of the overall scale of the loss and damage that developing countries face, but I hope that it sends an important message.

“As Denmark and Wallonia have shown, governments can act now on loss and damage if we want to. We don’t need to wait for a consensus decision at Cop – we can start funding programmes straight away.”

The EU and US blocked a proposal at the Glasgow talks to establish a fund, agreeing instead to a “dialogue” without a clear end goal.

Over the past month, they have signalled more openness to discussing compensation at Cop27, but remain wary of creating a fund amid fears of spiralling liabilities.

But Ms Sturgeon argued there was an obligation on richer countries in the “global north” that have largely caused climate change to help those suffering the impact of it.