A fund created to help underdeveloped countries with climate disasters has recently been announced after decades of conversation surrounding the topic. On Nov 19 at the United Nations Conference, the COP27 climate disaster plan was officially announced.

The increase in climate change has caused climate disasters in many countries. These disasters include hurricanes, heatwaves, floods, fires, and more. For larger and more developed countries, these disasters are able to be directly addressed and worked towards immediately to solve. However, more underdeveloped countries do not have this luxury. 

Poorer countries are facing daunting costs everyday trying to keep their country and people running. It is estimated costs for fixing climate change issues will increase about .25% globally in upcoming decades. While this cost may seem manageable at a global level, “they aren’t representative of the scale of the challenges faced by many poor and valuable countries,” IMF said.   

This fund is aimed at countries such as Afghanistan who already struggle economically and can’t afford to deal with climate issues in addition. These countries need financial aid to be able to fix their country after the inevitable effects of climate change have hit. 

“I think it’s a great idea,” History teacher Lauren Velazquez said. “Climate change is a problem that affects everyone on the planet, but unfortunately not everybody has an equal ability to respond to it. We have the resources, the wealth, and the technology, we should help.”

Although this new fund is beneficial for helping with the effects of climate change, fixing climate change as a whole is another important issue to work on. Even larger countries such as the United States are still suffering consequences of climate change. 

“About 80% of the world’s population is already being affected by human driven climate change,” Public Health Newswire said. “This year alone 18 climate-driven weather disasters struck the U.S., killing over 380 people.”

With the way climate change is progressing in the world right now, eventually the effects could turn irreversible. The new fund created is a great step forward to resolving the already made issues, but trying to reverse effects before changes do become irreversible should be a future goal. Climate change affects everyone, everywhere, the United Nations have great ways to learn how people at their own homes can work towards reducing their contribution and stop climate change before it can’t be anymore.