Climate: Organization forms to assist poor countries suffering from global warming’s effects

Governments meeting in Warsaw last month created a global organization that could eventually provide financial assistance to impoverished nations vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.

The founding came at the close of two weeks of United Nations climate talks in the Polish capital, which saw some setbacks as well as advances. The negotiations, which ended on Nov. 23, focused on laying the groundwork for a new climate-change treaty, which is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2015.

The new organization, dubbed the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss & Damage, came about after developing countries at risk from severe impacts of global warming—including rising seas and prolonged drought—lobbied hard for it. The U.S. had opposed its creation but eventually relented.

The Warsaw gathering also saw setbacks to international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Japan announced that it is backing off a pledge to cut its emissions 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster, Japan is paring back on nuclear energy and increasing fossil-fuel use. The country now says it will cut its emissions 3.8% from 2005 levels by 2020—equivalent to an increase of 3% from 1990 levels. In addition, Australia’s newly elected prime minister, Anthony J. (Tony) Abbott, is working to repeal his country’s carbon tax, a move expected to boost Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate-change official, warned that countries are not on track to achieve the internationally agreed-on goal of restricting human-induced average global temperature rise to 2 °C above preindustrial levels by 2100.