As the two-week-long UN climate summit COP27 kicked off in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, on Sunday, climate experts and small and developing countries celebrated an early victory. After 27 years of UN-led climate negotiations and 30 years of activist campaigns, the issue of compensation for victims of the climate crisis has made it onto the agenda for the very first time this year.

The issue of compensation is known as “loss and damage,” which refers to the loss and damage of cultures, of livelihoods, of properties and of lives due to the human-induced climate crisis. This year has seen many such tragedies occur across the globe, from the flooding that has devastated Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts in the Horn of Africa and cyclones in the Caribbean.

The people who suffer the very worst impacts of loss and damage live in regions that have historically low emissions and have contributed the least to causing climate change. As such, there’s a general consensus extending from climate justice activists all the way to governments that these people should be compensated for the losses and damages they’ve experienced.

But this consensus has only been reached in the past few months. Even at COP26 last year, smaller and developing countries pointed fingers at a group of wealthier countries, led by the US, for watering down language on loss and damage in the Glasgow Climate Pact.

The US is the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases of any country in the world. It also holds significant power