COP28: Loss and damage – the vital arguments
By the Climate Centre
The Climate Centre today published a summary of key findings on loss and damage from the Working Group II report of the sixth IPCC assessment of the global climate (known as AR6).
Produced in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and the Climate Analytics group, the report was supported by the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance and endorsed by technical experts on risk management from the Warsaw International Mechanism executive.
The principle aim of Key findings related to loss and damage from the Working Group II report of the sixth IPCC assessment of the global climate is to enable WGII content on loss and damage to be “translated into actionable information for national and regional policy-makers”, the text notes.
It includes three main sections: newly observed loss and damage included in AR6, details of what can be expected in the relatively near future in various important areas, and key issues for the relevant negotiations at COP28 in Dubai and beyond. Day one of COP28 saw the historic agreement on the operationalization of the loss and damage fund, but it is now critical to ensure funding reaches the people and communities most affected.
‘In practice, loss and damage is complex, compound and cascading’
Corresponding takeaways for policy-makers are that adaptation, even when effective, does not prevent all loss and damage; that loss and damage is unequally distributed and far from being adequately addressed; and that “in practice loss and damage is complex, compound and cascading [and could have] devastating consequences for the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Ambitious transformative actions are needed to minimize loss and damage as it’s expected to grow with global warming.
As part of its own key messages to COP28, the IFRC has called on governments and other relevant stakeholders to provide predictable finance matching the scale of climate-induced loss and damage “across the full disaster continuum from preparedness to recovery, including action across the climate, humanitarian and development nexus.”
In practice, this would encompass disaster risk reduction, early warning early action and anticipatory action, social protection, disaster risk financing, insurance pools, solidarity funds, and more, the IFRC adds; urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is necessary to reduce humanitarian impacts, locally led solutions should be implemented, anticipatory and early action expanded, and funding for adaptation increased.
Recalling the WGII example of small-boat migration across the Mediterranean, the Climate Centre report says that while this cannot be directly attributed to climate change, there is now a consensus that “food insecurity and land degradation, which are exacerbated by climate change impacts, are major drivers of political instability in Sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately contributing to migration flows”.
The new Climate Centre report summarize key findings on loss and damage from AR6, Working Group II.