For Latin America, climate reparations hinge on Brazil’s Amazon progress

Mitigation requirements tied to deforestation

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The presidents of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro (center), and of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, speaking at COP27 in a session regarding the restoration and conservation of the Amazon. At left is Susana Muhamad, Colombian Minister of the Environment. Photo: Daniel Gutman/IPS.

(Michael Molinski is a senior economist at Trendline Economics. He’s worked for Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo, and previously as a foreign correspondent and editor for Bloomberg News and MarketWatch.) 

BOGOTA, Colombia (Callaway Climate Insights) — The ink is not yet dry on COP27’s historic climate agreement, and already a chorus of voices from Latin America are questioning the promises and the validity of what was actually decided upon in Egypt over the past few weeks.

The main accomplishment at the U.N.’s climate change convention was the creation of a fund for “loss and damage” to directly help those countries damaged by severe weather, high temperatures and sea level rise.

Most Latin Americans have been saying that it’s about time that developed countries pay for the damages they have done to the environment for decades.