Inside Climate News reports:

Discontent about lack of progress on climate financing for vulnerable countries spilled into the second week of climate negotiations in Glasgow during Monday’s opening session of COP26, when representatives of all 197 countries at the United Nations Climate talks had a chance to directly address conference president Alok Sharma.

How to financially aid developing countries that hold almost no historical responsibility for global warming but are most vulnerable to its intensifying impacts has been a thorny question throughout the decades of IPCC negotiations and continues to hamper full implementation of the 2015 Paris agreement. But Monday, debate about the issue grew more pointed.

Instead of rich and poor countries working together to develop a reliable financial response to the climate crisis, developing nations are “held hostage to random acts of charity,” a delegate speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) told Sharma at the climate conference plenary session, where speakers are generally not identified by name, but by the countries they are from or represent. [Continue reading…]