The series of extreme weather events in 2022 fuelled by climate change that devastated lives and livelihoods of millions – from the floods in Pakistan and China to droughts in Somalia, Ethiopia, Brazil, and Europe – set a clarion call for the long-awaited climate finance, also known as loss and damage finance. After years of hard negotiations, at the world’s …

During the negotiations on funding for loss and damage in COP27 in Egypt last November, representatives of developed countries had a lot of reservations about such a proposal. My answer to them was that, while their questions were quite legitimate, they would only get answers after we received a political commitment from their leaders to establish the funding mechanism in …

Climate-related loss and damage is escalating, with many countries experiencing new forms of climate impact, of increasing intensity. The focus until now has been on calculating the economic repercussions of climate risk. Its wider impacts and resulting hidden costs of climate change — such as loss of cultural heritage — are less understood and harder to quantify. This knowledge gap …

After COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 funding to address Loss and Damage started outside the UNFCCC initiated by Scotland.  Then in 2022 many other governments and Foundations also started funding outside the UNFCCC. At COP27 in Egypt in November 2022 the historic decision to establish a funding scheme within the UNFCCC. Moving towards COP28 to be held in Dubai in …

  The loss and damage conversation largely centres around the economics of climate impacts. Losses and damages which are difficult to value on a monetary scale are termed ‘non-economic losses and damages’, often left out of the equation, and often misunderstood. Moreover, there is a limited appreciation of the connections between what is deemed economic and non-economic. This all leads …

This climate researcher from Bangladesh helped to force wealthy countries to pay for the losses and damages from climate change. In the final hours before the close of last month’s United Nations climate conference in Egypt, exhausted delegates slumped on sofas outside the formal meeting rooms. But not Saleemul Huq, who was sitting upright, rapidly checking messages on his phone. …

Countries and communities are exposed to increasingly harmful effects of climate change, leading to loss and damage. These concerns must be urgently addressed, especially in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). After decades of lobbying by LDCs, SIDS and others, the world has woken up to this situation, and negotiators at the 27th United Nations Climate …

Saleemul Huq, one of the most persistent long-term advocates of a ‘loss and damage’ fund on climate change, explores the origins and potential of the breakthrough at the recent COP. For thirty years the vulnerable developing countries led by the small island states had been demanding under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) the creation of a fund …

COP27 ended a day overtime on November 20 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt with the historic achievement of a new fund for addressing loss and damage in vulnerable developing countries. Today, I want to tell the story of how this was achieved. The demand for rich countries to shoulder their responsibility for historic pollution – which has raised the global temperature …

Launch of Loss & Damage Forum, on 17 November 2022 15:15 – 16:15 (EGY) at LLA Pavilion (Area C). The Loss and Damage Forum (LDF) which is a collaborative platform and virtual workspace where resources and tools are shared among a group of practitioners, researchers and decision makers across the world, with a prime focus of connecting local to global, …