Campaigners want fossil fuel firms to pay into climate calamity fund; diplomats dubious

BONN, Germany (AP) — Environmental campaigners called Wednesday for fossil fuel producers to contribute to a new fund intended to help poor countries cope with climate disasters. 

The so-called loss and damage fund was a key achievement of last year's U.N. climate summit in Egypt. Developing nations have long demanded more financial support for the impacts from global warming, which is historically driven by pollution from rich countries. 

“It is the prime responsibility for countries to fill that fund, particularly those with the greatest historic responsibility,” said Rebecca Newsom, of the environmental group Greenpeace. 

“But in order to fill that fund at scale now, we need to really ramp things up,” she said. “The most obvious starting point is, of course, the fossil fuel industry, the creators of the crisis that we are now facing.”