China and India qualify as developing countries for climate change purposes, and that's just wrong

The COP28 climate summit has already announced a few promising developments, one of which is a "loss and damage" fund, whereby rich developed countries subsidize poorer developing countries for the additional costs they have incurred from disasters and damage caused by climate change.

That all sounds very sensible. But the problem arises in defining which countries should contribute to the fund and which countries should benefit from it. There is a concept of "common but differentiated responsibilities" in UN jargon, which basically means that all countries have a responsibility to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but their share of responsibility depends on their development needs. But the UN's definitions of "developed" and "developing" are based on its 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is now over 30 years old, and much has changed in the intervening decades.

So, technically, India and China qualify as developing nations, and therefore stand to claim from the fund, which seems kind of ridiculous. China is the world's largest carbon dioxide emitter, having overtaken the USA some years ago, and India is now Number 3. China and India both argue that their high levels of emissions are a recent development, while other western countries have been polluting the world for centuries. This is, of course, mere sophistry and disingenuous in the extreme.

China is now the second richest country in the world in terms of GDP, and India  has the fifth biggest economy. Yes, they both have huge populations to support, but to subsidize their current emissions habits seems just plain wrong. Interestingly, the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the summit, is also technically a developing country, but it has pledged $100 million to the loss and damage fund, so a precedent has been set. 

At the very least, the outdated development grouping of countries being used by the UN is in dire need of revision.