Here in Copenhagen, the US has rejected calls for the payment of climate reparations to poorer countries for the devastation wrought by global warming. Reparations advocates say the US and other industrialized nations owe a debt to poorer countries for the effects of decades of emissions. On Wednesday, the lead US negotiator, Todd Stern, said he “categorically rejects” the principle of climate debt.

Todd Stern: “We absolutely recognize our historic role in putting the emissions in the atmosphere up there that are — you know, that are there now. But the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just — I categorically reject that.”