The 27th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27), held in Egypt, ended on Nov. 20 after producing a historic deal to establish a loss and damages fund.

The global climate crisis is already beginning to take on a clear and alarming shape.

The international community must enhance its concerted efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions further and provide support to countries suffering from the consequences of harmful climate change.

Nations that participated in the climate conference reached an agreement to create a fund for compensating poor nations that are victims of extreme weather worsened by rich countries’ carbon pollution.

Developing countries vulnerable to the damaging effects of global warming had been calling for such relief for many years, but industrial nations balked at the idea out of concerns about potentially huge payments.

The issue was put on the formal COP agenda for the first time in response to a pronounced increase in severe droughts and floods due to global warming.

Pakistan championed the call for rich nations to compensate poor countries for damages from a crisis they are not responsible for. This summer’s monsoon rains and floods inundated one-third of the country.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told delegates at the conference that while it is only responsible for a small fraction of global carbon emissions it has become a victim of catastrophic flooding, which he described as “a man-made disaster.”

The welcome agreement to create a loss and damages fund reflects a growing sense of crisis shared widely among countries. The specifics of the fund, such as its scale and the scopes of the contributors and recipients, will be discussed at COP28 next year.

Rich industrial nations that have spewed huge amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as their economies have grown should tackle the work with a clear and strong sense of responsibility.

They should not forget about their pledges to provide funds to help developing countries with their efforts to reduce emissions, either.

On the other hand, the conference in Egypt failed to produce an overall agreement to accelerate the pace of reductions in the world’s emissions of heat-trapping gasses, a core climate challenge.

The COP27 final document reaffirmed the goal set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement to keep overall global warming from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. But the climate negotiators failed to agree on any other positive step. That is truly deplorable.

This year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has delivered a serious blow to the spirit of international cooperation and made the global energy situation much worse. Experts expected tough negotiations at the conference because of these facts.

But there is no time to waste in tackling the challenge. Even if countries fulfill their current climate commitments, global greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 10.6 percent by 2030 above 2010 levels and the world is possibly on course for warming of about 2.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

The document also contains many loopholes. The reference in COP27’s final text to use of “low-emission” energy sources as part of the efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions could be used as a pretext for developing natural gas resources.

With regard to coal power generation, the final text, in line with last year’s agreement, only called for a phase down of “unabated coal power generation,” which refers to the use of coal that isn’t mitigated with technologies to reduce the CO2 emissions.

If countries stick to using fossil fuels in their focus on protecting their parochial interests, they cannot fulfill their responsibilities for the future.

Industrial nations must play leading roles in ensuring effective international cooperation for stemming global warming by fulfilling their own responsibilities to cut emissions and support developing countries while urging major emerging countries such as China and India to do more to contribute to the cause.

Japan, for its part, needs to make greater efforts to promote the use of renewable energy sources and accelerate the development of green energy technologies.

Climate change is posing a common and serious threat to the entire human race. All nations--industrial, emerging and developing ones--must put their differences aside and work in unity to respond to this threat.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 22