​Kalain Ho­sein

​Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

​A near­ly 30-year fight has end­ed as the Loss and Dam­age Fund has been adopt­ed at COP28, the in­ter­na­tion­al cli­mate con­fer­ence un­der­way in Dubai, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates.

COP28 Pres­i­dent Dr Sul­tan Al Jaber gavelled the adop­tion of the draft de­ci­sion for the Loss and Dam­age Fund yes­ter­day af­ter­noon dur­ing the con­fer­ence’s open­ing.

Al Jaber ad­dressed the stand­ing ova­tion say­ing, “We have de­liv­ered his­to­ry to­day. It is the first time a de­ci­sion has been de­liv­ered on day one of any COP.”

Loss and Dam­age has been a con­tentious top­ic, par­tic­u­lar­ly for wealth­i­er, long-pol­lut­ing coun­tries, pri­mar­i­ly con­tribut­ing to abun­dant green­house gas emis­sions, leav­ing de­vel­op­ing na­tions to re­cov­er from un­fold­ing cli­mate dis­as­ters.

The chair of the Al­liance of Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (AO­SIS), Am­bas­sador Pa’olelei Luteru and Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Samoa to the Unit­ed Na­tions since 2021, stat­ed that the fund was adopt­ed, wel­com­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions draft­ed over the last year. “Our rep­re­sen­ta­tives on the TC (Tran­si­tion­al Com­mit­tee) have been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to en­sure that at COP28 we waste no fur­ther time in bring­ing this fund to fruition. We look for­ward to fi­nal­ly putting words in­to ac­tion and de­liv­er­ing on this com­mit­ment we made to help the peo­ple who suf­fer most from a cri­sis they did not cause,” he said.

“And the work is far from over. Af­ter the gav­el drops at COP28, we can­not rest un­til this fund is ad­e­quate­ly fi­nanced and starts to ac­tu­al­ly al­le­vi­ate the bur­den of vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties. Suc­cess starts when the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty can prop­er­ly sup­port the vic­tims of this cli­mate cri­sis, with ef­fi­cient, di­rect ac­cess to the fi­nance they ur­gent­ly need.”

What is Loss

and Dam­age

The term refers to the ir­re­versible eco­nom­ic and non-eco­nom­ic costs of ex­treme weath­er events and slow on­set cli­mate dis­as­ters such as ris­ing sea lev­els and melt­ing glac­i­ers. The “loss” refers to ir­re­versibly lost things, while “dam­age” refers to things that can’t be re­paired or re­cov­ered.

Eco­nom­ic costs in­clude lives, jobs, prop­er­ty, food sys­tems, and ter­ri­to­ry ir­re­versibly lost. In con­trast, the hard­er-to-quan­ti­fy non-eco­nom­ic costs re­fer to the loss of cul­ture, iden­ti­ty, sov­er­eign­ty, hu­man dig­ni­ty, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and psy­cho­log­i­cal well-be­ing.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, these funds are meant to be used for find­ing shel­ter for the thou­sands dis­placed by cat­a­stroph­ic hur­ri­canes like 2019’s Do­ri­an in the Ba­hamas, 2017’s Ir­ma in Bar­bu­da, or 2017’s Maria, which dev­as­tat­ed Do­mini­ca and Puer­to Ri­co. It is al­so meant for re­lo­cat­ing coastal com­mu­ni­ties that are al­ready or near­ly un­der­wa­ter be­cause of ris­ing seas.

A brief his­to­ry of

Loss and Dam­age

Loss and Dam­age is far from a re­cent is­sue in the world of cli­mate change. In fact, from the ear­ly 1990s, when world lead­ers and diplo­mats gath­ered at the Unit­ed Na­tions, small is­lands be­gan ask­ing for help to deal with cli­mate-re­lat­ed im­pacts. How­ev­er, wealth­i­er na­tions re­sist these talks as they avoid be­com­ing legal­ly or fi­nan­cial­ly re­spon­si­ble for the un­fold­ing cli­mate im­pacts.

With shared cli­mate chal­lenges, small is­lands formed AO­SIS in 1990 at the Sec­ond World Cli­mate Con­fer­ence in Gene­va. Trinidad and To­ba­go was a found­ing mem­ber, and AO­SIS, a crit­i­cal ne­go­ti­at­ing al­liance at COP, is now 39 mem­bers strong.

Loss and Dam­age for­mal­ly en­tered the ne­go­ti­a­tions in 1991 with a pro­pos­al from AO­SIS for the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC). It in­clud­ed a par­tic­u­lar re­quest for “in­dus­tri­alised” na­tions to pay for the “loss and dam­age” that would harm vul­ner­a­ble small is­land na­tions due to ris­ing sea lev­els. Ul­ti­mate­ly, the pro­pos­al did not make it in­to the UN­FC­CC, but the near­ly three-decades-long ne­go­ti­a­tions be­gan.

It took un­til 2015 at COP21 for Loss and Dam­age to be for­malised with­in Ar­ti­cle 8 of the Paris Agree­ment, which is dis­tinct from pre­vi­ous ref­er­ences to adap­ta­tion. Suc­ces­sive COPs in­clud­ed more de­bates, ne­go­ti­a­tions, and work plans, but there was lit­tle progress on fi­nanc­ing Loss and Dam­age.

At COP26 in Glas­gow, G77+Chi­na, a ne­go­ti­at­ing block at the Unit­ed Na­tions rep­re­sent­ing six out of sev­en peo­ple glob­al­ly, called on wealthy coun­tries with the largest green­house gas emis­sions to pledge mon­ey for Loss and Dam­age. The Unit­ed States, the Eu­ro­pean Union, Aus­tralia, and oth­ers op­posed it. In­stead, the Glas­gow Cli­mate Pact and the Glas­gow Di­a­logue were formed to move for­ward on a path and process for Loss and Dam­age fi­nanc­ing.

Some 55 vul­ner­a­ble coun­tries es­ti­mat­ed their com­bined cli­mate-linked loss­es over the last two decades to­talled about $525 bil­lion, or about 20 per cent of their col­lec­tive GDP, based on a re­port in June 2022. Re­search sug­gests that by 2030, such loss­es could reach US$580 bil­lion per year.

COP28’s Break­through

In a land­mark de­ci­sion, the Loss and Dam­age fund was adopt­ed in the open­ing ple­nary of COP28. The Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates was the first pledge to the fund, an­nounced by For­eign Min­is­ter Sheikh Ab­dul­lah Bin Za­yed of US$100 mil­lion. The Eu­ro­pean Union has al­so an­nounced an ag­gre­gate pledge of €220 mil­lion, which in­cludes a com­mit­ment from Ger­many of US$100 mil­lion.

The Unit­ed King­dom pledged up to £60 mil­lion for the Loss and Dam­age fund. How­ev­er, in their state­ment, up to £40 mil­lion would be specif­i­cal­ly for the Loss and Dam­age fund, while up to £20 mil­lion would be used for the “fund­ing arrange­ments and the Ear­ly Warn­ings for All Ini­tia­tive”.

John Ker­ry, the Unit­ed States Spe­cial Pres­i­den­tial En­voy for Cli­mate, al­so pledged US$17.5 mil­lion to the Loss and Dam­age Fund, US$4.5 mil­lion to the Pa­cif­ic Re­silience Fa­cil­i­ty, and US$2.5 mil­lion to the San­ti­a­go Net­work. Japan has al­so pledged US$10 mil­lion to the Loss and Dam­age fund yes­ter­day af­ter­noon in Dubai.

By mid-2024, the World Bank will con­firm whether or not it will act as the in­ter­im trustee and host of the funds pledged. If it does with spe­cif­ic con­di­tions agreed to, it has a four-year in­ter­im pe­ri­od as the host and trustee of the Loss and Dam­age fund, which can be­come per­ma­nent to­ward the end of the four years. If it does not, the UN­FC­CC will look for a host coun­try for the fund and de­vel­op it as an in­de­pen­dent, stand­alone in­sti­tu­tion. Sim­i­lar to the World Bank out­come, if con­di­tions are met, the in­de­pen­dent, stand­alone in­sti­tu­tion pro­ceeds, but there may be fur­ther de­lays for op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion (ie coun­tries to ac­cess the funds when need­ed).

His­tor­i­cal­ly, T&T has al­ways sup­port­ed the call for a Loss and Dam­age fund, be­ing part of AO­SIS and the G77+Chi­na ne­go­ti­at­ing blocs with­in the UN­FC­CC sys­tem.

Last year, T&T’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne reaf­firmed the coun­try’s po­si­tion at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

Browne said, “Trinidad and To­ba­go calls for the full and ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Paris Agree­ment. A ded­i­cat­ed fa­cil­i­ty to ad­dress Loss and Dam­age un­der the UN­FC­CC Fi­nan­cial Mech­a­nism is an ab­solute ne­ces­si­ty. These ac­tions must be pri­ori­tised be­cause what is at stake is the very ex­is­tence and vi­a­bil­i­ty of small is­land States.”