China will support a mechanism to compensate poor countries for the loss and damage associated with climate change, but it won’t contribute any cash. That was the main takeaway from a press conference by Xie Zhenhua, China’s chief delegate to the COP27 climate summit underway in Egypt.

“We strongly support the claims from developing countries, especially the most vulnerable countries, for claiming loss and damage compensation because China is also a developing country and we also suffered a lot from extreme weather events,” Xie said. “It is not the obligation of China but we are willing to make our contribution and make our effort.”