{"id":1818,"date":"2025-01-09T19:47:34","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T16:47:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/?p=1818"},"modified":"2025-11-20T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:38:09","slug":"climate-change-is-changing-the-policies-of-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/2025\/01\/09\/climate-change-is-changing-the-policies-of-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change is changing the policies of states"},"content":{"rendered":"

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn their Alpine border as glaciers melt, with changes affecting the area around the Matterhorn, one of Europe’s highest peaks, which borders the Swiss region of Zermatt. At the same time, richer countries are starting to pay poorer ones for the damage caused by climate change.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Switzerland and Italy have revised their Alpine border due to melting glaciers.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0The changes affected the area around the Matterhorn, one of Europe’s highest peaks, located on the border of the Swiss region of Zermatt (south of the canton of Valais) and the Italian region of Valle d’Aosta, RBK reports, citing Bloomberg.<\/span><\/p>\n

While national borders are often considered fixed, large sections of the Swiss-Italian border are marked by glaciers and snow fields. As the glaciers melt, these natural features evolve and redefine the national border, the Swiss government says. The border changes were agreed upon in 2023, and the Swiss government formally approved them on Friday. In Italy, the approval process is still ongoing.<\/span><\/p>\n

The border revision affected the popular ski resort of Zermatt, located at the foot of the Matterhorn. Tourists and skiers can still freely cross the border between Switzerland and Italy, but the border itself has been changed near the mountains of Testa Grigia, Plateau Rosa and Gobba di Rollin in accordance with the economic interests of the two countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Swiss glaciers continue to melt rapidly. According to The Guardian, they lost 4% of their volume in 2023. In 2022, they shrank by 6%. Scientists have stopped measuring the size of ice on some Swiss peaks because there is none left.<\/span><\/p>\n

Europe’s glaciers are melting faster than those on other continents. According to the Copernicus service, they have lost 10% in the last two years, and by 2050 the ice sheet will have shrunk by half, even if warming does not exceed the 2\u00b0 mark.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richer countries are starting to pay poorer countries for climate damage.<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The payment is one of the first examples of \u201closs and damage\u201d compensation, a new type of funding specifically designed for climate-related disasters. Low-income countries are bearing the brunt of more intense storms and droughts, but have done little to produce the pollution that is heating the planet. So last year, richer countries agreed to create a fund specifically to pay for climate damage, NPR reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, about $720 million has been pledged from countries including the European Union, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. But climate experts warn that with hurricanes and floods only getting worse, that amount will be much lower.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, countries negotiated the size of debt owed to developing countries as part of a larger \u201cclimate finance\u201d package that includes loans and investments.<\/span><\/p>\n

“We just hope that the countries in the global north and the countries whose economies are fuelled by emissions will take responsibility and realise what they are doing to us,” says Philip Davis, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nMore than 1,000 people died in 2023’s Cyclone Freddy, and hundreds of thousands were displaced in Malawi. Many low-income countries bear the disproportionate impact of more intense storms. Amos Gumulira<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

For example, Cyclone Freddy\u2019s devastation spread across several countries, displacing 650,000 people from their homes in Malawi alone. The country received six months\u2019 worth of rain in just six days. Thousands of people were relocated to temporary camps. They were then given a cash payment that allowed the refugees to move to new settlements and build housing. This payment came from the Scottish government, the first country to specifically allocate funds to cover losses and damages. So far, funds have been sent to several countries. In Malawi, they were given by GiveDirectly, a non-profit that specializes in providing cash grants to people in need, with no strings attached.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 2,700 families received payments of about $750, which could be equivalent to two years’ income in Malawi. Many used the money to rebuild homes, while others invested in seeds, fertilizer and livestock, or in schools for their children.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLow-income households in low-income countries have much less protection against extreme events,\u201d says Yolanda Wright, vice president of partnerships at GiveDirectly. \u201cThey may not have any insurance. Insurance products may not be available even if they wanted to buy them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Malawi program is, in some ways, a pilot for a larger system of compensation for loss and damage. Countries agreed last year to create the fund as a way to compensate low-income countries that have low greenhouse gas emissions overall. The United States and Europe have accounted for nearly half of all emissions since the Industrial Revolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nChristopher Bingala, a farmer in Malawi, stands outside his new home. After losing his home to Cyclone Freddy, he received a payment from a new climate disaster fund. Henderson Mhone<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Increasingly severe hurricanes, storms and droughts are placing a heavy financial burden on developing countries, especially those already in debt. In the Bahamas, Prime Minister Davis says his country\u2019s public debt has risen since Hurricane Dorian in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to recover and rebuild, I need to borrow,\u201d Davis says. \u201cForty percent of my national debt can be directly attributed to the effects of climate change.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So far, much of the $720 million pledged to pay for losses and damages has not yet arrived. At the COP29 summit, countries finalized documents to create a fund to be housed at the World Bank. The fund\u2019s guiding principles have not yet been established, such as which countries will receive funding and for what types of damages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many low-income countries argue that funding should go beyond disaster recovery. Some funds could be used to relocate villages in the path of rising sea levels or to compensate countries for the loss of important cultural sites or environmental resources such as coral reefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The need for funding for loss and damage is only expected to increase as disasters become more extreme, reaching $250 billion a year by 2030, according to a recent study.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Switzerland and Italy have redrawn their Alpine border as glaciers melt, with changes affecting the area around the Matterhorn, one of Europe’s highest peaks, which borders the Swiss region of Zermatt. At the same time, richer countries are starting to pay poorer ones for the damage caused by climate change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,23,777,538],"tags":[798,860,861,859],"class_list":{"0":"post-1818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-klimat","9":"category-climatechange","10":"category-humanity","11":"tag-alps","12":"tag-italy","13":"tag-malawi","14":"tag-switzerland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1818\/revisions\/1820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planeta21vek.ru\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}