What is Damage and Loss in Terms of Climate Change?

Understanding the Paris Agreement in the Pacific, Part 3 

What is ‘damage and loss’? It was a quite contentious component of the negotiations during COP21 in Paris, largely because it apportions blame for the impacts of climate change on the biggest polluters - those which are essentially causing sea level rise and changes to the climate that see more intensive and frequent storms and droughts that impact the poorest nations the hardest. For example, it is no secret that the current El Nino, which is causing massive drought across the Pacific, south East Asia and much of Africa, is the strongest on record in large part due to climate change. Significant and perhaps irreparable damage to crops and agricultural land is taking place - losses which will impact the livelihoods and economies of those affected to the point that some communities may need to migrate for seasonal work or entirely and find new places to live, meaning they lose not only their livelihoods but also their homes and land - things they are unlikely to be compensated for.  

It makes sense in theory that climate victims should be compensated - this is particularly relevant in the Pacific Islands where entire communities and even countries are at risk of survival and continued existence. Climate change is having drastic impacts through no fault of Pacific Islanders - who contributed a stunning 0.02% of Greenhouse Gas emissions up to 2010 - and many risk losing everything and should definitely compensated for it.  

In practice, GHG contributing countries (the main contributors) don’t see how they can be persuaded to compensate other countries for damages and loss incurred due to climate change, and specifically how one calculates what the loss is in financial terms. Damage is a bit easier to calculate (see here for an example). 

This is hugely detrimental for the Pacific, and sadly, the Paris Agreement provided nothing new upon which to act, except to ‘pass the buck,’ so to speak, for action to minimize damage and loss to the countries - the one’s that struggle to afford it to begin with. Specifically, the Paris Agreement notes that ‘Parties should enhance understanding, action and support, … as appropriate, on a cooperative and facilitative basis, with respect to loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change.’  The Agreement goes on to list what those actions may include: early warning, emergency preparedness, slow onset events, events that may involve irreversible and permanent loss and damage, comprehensive risk assessment and management, risk insurance facilities-climate risk pooling-other insurance solutions, non-economic losses, and the resilience of communities, livelihood and ecosystems. 

Effectively the Paris Agreement says that rather than focus on compensating for damage and loss (for now), we should just plan better, increase our resilience and get back what we can through insurance. This is a short term solution - one that works for the next 20-30 years before sea level rise becomes so catastrophic that small islands states are forced to relocate their citizens.  

The Pacific and all small island states need a better, long term solution that plans for the eventual required migration of people and the de jure and de facto compensation that necessitates, not just for the communities in the move, but host communities as well. We need to work together as a collective force to pressure the international community to look at damage and loss not as a one-off payment but as a process that will accrue costs and scale overtime. We need them to plan  for that, not for today or tomorrow or next year.