Tag: Loss and Damage
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The who’s and how’s of allocating loss and damage funds
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…
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Non-economic loss and damage: closing the knowledge gap
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…
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Loss & Damage Finance
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…
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The case for a values-based understanding of loss and damage
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…
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SALEEMUL HUQ: Climate revolutionary
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…
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ALL ACT now! Progressing locally led action on loss and damage
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…
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Loss and Damage fund established at COP27: what happens next?
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)…
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The story behind the loss and damage fund at COP27
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…
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COP27: A historic shift towards setting-up a loss and damage financial structure
COP27 process represents a historic moment for loss and damage (L&D) since this is the first time the issue was adopted into the agenda and approved in the same year and am not sure if this has ever been the case within any UN negotiating process, said Saber H Chowdhury, president of the Parliamentary Standing…
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COP27: Focus shift towards setting up Loss and Damage Financial Structure
Little was done to address the causes of global warming
The UN climate talks COP27 closed in Egypt on Saturday started to address the symptoms of the climate crisis in a breakthrough decision for the most vulnerable. A historic progress was made with a commitment to set up for a financial support structure for the most vulnerable to deal with “Loss and Damage” caused by…
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From Framing to Financing #LossAndDamage
COP after COP, the global climate action community or the ‘Conference of Parties’ as it is officially called, has made endless efforts to define, measure, and attribute Loss and Damage. From Agreement to Protocol, from Mechanism and Network to Conference and Declaration to Dialogue1, we have been only discussing and asserting the need for climate…
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OPINION:COP27 will be the first U.N. climate summit in the era of loss and damage
The upcoming talks must agree to set up a funding facility to help countries deal with the growing harm caused by climate change impacts It has now been 30 years since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1972 – and…