The rich world claims it has paid its overdue climate debts

Mission accomplishedOECDOECDCOPUN? Rich countries have at last met a promise to provide $100bn a year of climate finance to poorer ones, according to estimates for 2022 from the , a club of mostly rich countries. That is two years late: the amount was originally pledged in 2009, when it was supposed to arrive by 2020. It is also not a sure thing. The ‘s figures are preliminary and may be revised.Still, the estimates may ease tensions between rich countries and poor ones ahead of 28, this year’s climate summit in Dubai, which begins on November 30th. The missed pledge had become a symbol of rich-world hypocrisy: urging poor countries to forgo fossil fuels without providing the finance to help them achieve that, or to help them adapt to the warmer planet brought about by its own coal-and-oil-fuelled development. An indication, however tentative, that rich countries have at last met the goal is better than none.