Loss and damage at COP28 and beyond

The problem: The Loss and Damage Fund adopted at COP27 now needs to be operationalised At COP28

Why it matters: Clarifying the guiding principles and how the Loss and Damage fund can support affected countries in dealing with losses from climate disasters is vital for climate justice

The solution: A set of guiding principles using a human rights approach to support climate justice

Authors: Priti Parikh, Penelope Yaguma, Simon Chin-Yee, Lisa Vanhala, Richard Taylor, Mark Maslin

As nations and world leaders gather in Dubai later this year for COP28, climate-vulnerable developing countries and small island states will be pushing for progress on the Loss and Damage (L&D) fund. When the L&D fund was adopted at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, it was called a historic decision by many, considering the island nation of Vanuatu first proposed the creation of such a fund at the UNFCCC inception back in 1992.

It’s still early days for the fund and many questions are still unanswered such as: Who pays into it? How much and how often? Who can access the fund and for what?

There is no official definition for the term ‘loss and damage’ yet (which highlights the contentiousness of this area of the climate change negotiations). But for many, ‘losses and damages’ broadly means the harm from (observed) impacts and (projected) risks from climate change. The L&D fund is intended to be fundamentally different from existing climate funds which cover avoidable losses through mitigation and adaptation measures. The authors argue that the L&D fund should cover unavoidable losses due to climate change. L&D funds are not an insurance scheme, and neither is it development aid or humanitarian assistance, which tends to be reactive and discretionary.

The core purpose of the L&D fund is to support affected communities and countries in dealing with losses during or following a climate disaster. Accurate and socially legitimate ways of measuring climate losses and damages are also crucial as is recognition of the wide range of types of losses -- direct or indirect, economic or non-economic, tangible or intangible. The field of attribution science has become more robust over the years and has a role to play with this.

What should the Loss and Damage Fund be used for?

Developed countries have failed to deliver the $100 billion per year pledged in 2009 and ratified in 2010 for mitigation and adaptation of least developed countries (Green Climate Fund). Other climate funds have also consistently underdelivered so there are reasons for developing countries to be frustrated and pessimistic about the L&D fund. The specifics of what will actually be considered loss and damage still needs to be determined. We posit that it could be utilised for critical sectors that tend to be hard hit by climate change and to build community-level resilience. The interdisciplinary authors in this paper consider what the L&D fund could mean for water and sanitation, transport and energy, infrastructure, justice and human rights, and human security.

**Figure 1: **The Loss and Damage fund could be effectively leveraged for critical sectors.

Overall, we see responding to loss and damage as an opportunity to mainstream nature-based solutions which protect our environment. For example, in response to stressed freshwater resources, the fund can support the changing of crop types, small-scale irrigation, and the delivery of seasonal forecasts and climate information for farmers. It could also finance localised nature-based solutions for water resource management like rainwater harvesting. Sanitation facilities like pit latrines in low-income communities are particularly prone to events like flooding, therefore the rebuilding of both grid and off-grid sanitation services could benefit. The funding can also help to plug the resource gaps that usually constrain the delivery of large-scale public transportation, including greening the shipping sector, fortifying ports, and engaging the sector to deliver aid and goods following climate disasters. There is also an opportunity to invest in clean energy and transport fuels for our future cities, ports, and transportation.

Guiding principles

With increasingly more people and communities displaced by climate disasters, the fund can be used to compensate or resettle migrants fleeing climate-induced events.

Wide evidence shows that human rights violations increase during climatic and weather-related disasters – for women and girls, children, older people, disabled people, indigenous peoples, and other marginalised groups. By adopting a human rights-based approach, the fund could integrate normative dimensions of human rights into its design, implementation, and evaluation. This would entail substantive commitments to protecting, respecting and promoting human rights, and ensuring that the fund’s governance and operational processes are participatory, inclusive and non-discriminatory. All this will require strong guiding principles, such as:

1. Consistency: in the amount and frequency of contributions into the fund
2. Clarity: in the rules and regulations for operationalising and accessing the fund
3. Community-driven: timely disbursement of funds and empowerment of local communities
4. Corruption-free: transparency and accountability to avoid the misuse of funds

Looking ahead to COP28, discussions on L&D should center the voices and needs of low-income countries and small island states and remain attuned to the magnitude and urgency of the extreme events affecting vulnerable populations in real time. Ultimately, the fund will need to be reactive to climate events and predictive in understanding the affected communities’ needs so that the finance allocated is not just a band-aid solution but addresses the root causes of the vulnerabilities.

**Figure 2: **Principles that can guide an effective Loss and Damage fund.

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(Image Credit: Unsplash)