KALAIN HO­SEIN

Wealth­i­er, long-pol­lut­ing coun­tries glob­al­ly are fail­ing to meet their com­mit­ments to fight cli­mate change and, specif­i­cal­ly, falling short of arm­ing de­vel­op­ing na­tions to re­cov­er from the fall­out of un­fold­ing cli­mate dis­as­ters. Cli­mate repa­ra­tions, or "Loss and Dam­age" pay­ments, are set to dom­i­nate the con­ver­sa­tion at COP27.

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 sea-lev­el rise and melt­ing glac­i­ers. The "loss" refers to things that are ir­re­versibly lost, 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 cli­mate world. 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 the Al­liance of Small Is­land States (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 "in­dus­tri­al­ized" 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 for­mal­ized with­in Ar­ti­cle 8 of the Paris Agree­ment, dis­tinct from pre­vi­ous ref­er­ences to adap­ta­tion. Suc­ces­sive COPs in­clud­ed more de­bates, ne­go­ti­a­tions, and work plans, but there was lit­tle progress on pro­vid­ing fi­nanc­ing for "Loss and Dam­age."

At COP26 in Glas­gow last year, G77 plus Chi­na, a ne­go­ti­at­ing block at the Unit­ed Na­tions rep­re­sent­ing six out of sev­en peo­ple in the world, called on wealthy coun­tries with the largest green­house gas emis­sions to pledge mon­ey for loss and dam­age. It was op­posed by the Unit­ed States, the Eu­ro­pean Union, Aus­tralia, and oth­ers. In­stead, the Glas­gow Cli­mate Pact and the Glas­gow Di­a­logue were formed to move for­ward on a path and process for "Loss and Dam­age" fi­nanc­ing.

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

Delegates gather for the opening plenary of COP27 (UNFCCC, Simon Stiel, Kiara Worth)

Johann Olivier

What hap­pens at COP27?

Af­ter three decades of mak­ing the first call for "Loss and Dam­age," Unit­ed Na­tions par­ties agreed at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to in­clude it in the for­mal COP27 agen­da on Sun­day evening. In the com­ing days, world lead­ers and rep­re­sen­ta­tives will dis­cuss the "fund­ing arrange­ments re­spond­ing to loss and dam­age as­so­ci­at­ed with the ad­verse ef­fects of cli­mate change."

AO­SIS, with a re­newed pro­pos­al this year, is head­ing in­to cli­mate ne­go­ti­a­tions with a re­newed call to close the ex­ist­ing loss and dam­age fi­nanc­ing gaps. AO­SIS adds that these funds should al­so be used for health and ed­u­ca­tion re­lief, cul­ture, her­itage, and ecosys­tem restora­tion, debt re­lief, in­sur­ance, and cat­a­stro­phe bond sup­port with long-term ca­pac­i­ty build­ing, sys­tem­at­ic ob­ser­va­tion, and da­ta col­lec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Rac­quel Moses, the CEO of the Caribbean Cli­mate-Smart Ac­cel­er­a­tor, US $20 mil­lion has been pledged to date for Loss and Dam­age. The scale of dis­as­ters, how­ev­er, pales com­pared to the cur­rent to­tal pledge.

"If you're look­ing at US $20 mil­lion, Hur­ri­cane Ian just passed. That was US $60 bil­lion," she said.

She not­ed that there is no prop­er fa­cil­i­ty to ad­min­is­ter the fund­ing.

AO­SIS and the G77 plus Chi­na are at­tempt­ing to solve this prob­lem. AO­SIS says their lead­ers, chaired by An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne un­til the end of 2022, have en­dorsed an agree­ment to es­tab­lish and op­er­a­tional­ize a new, fit-for-pur­pose mul­ti­lat­er­al fund for Loss and Dam­age. It will be des­ig­nat­ed as an op­er­at­ing en­ti­ty of the Unit­ed Na­tions Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UN­FC­CC) Fi­nan­cial Mech­a­nism. AO­SIS added that they hope the fund's de­sign and op­er­a­tional­iza­tion will be com­plet­ed by COP28 in 2023.

Ac­cord­ing to AO­SIS, the pro­posed fund "will en­joy mul­ti­lat­er­al, con­sen­sus-based le­git­i­ma­cy as an op­er­at­ing en­ti­ty; and be re­quired to have an eq­ui­table and bal­anced rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all Par­ties with­in a trans­par­ent sys­tem of gov­er­nance, which is not guar­an­teed out­side of the UN­FC­CC."

T&T's Po­si­tion on Loss and Dam­age

Though not in at­ten­dance at COP27, Trinidad and To­ba­go's Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, al­so reaf­firmed the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al's state­ment at the 77th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, ear­li­er this year:

"Droughts, wild­fires, floods, and cat­a­clysmic hur­ri­canes and ty­phoons are re­al­i­ties that small is­land states know all too well. At the same time, slow-on­set events such as the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of coral reefs and the in­flux of sar­gas­sum sea­weed threat­en our frag­ile ecosys­tems and the liveli­hoods of our peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly our fish­er­folk and those de­pen­dent on tourism."

Min­is­ter Browne added: "Ac­cord­ing­ly, 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 pri­or­i­tized be­cause what is at stake is the very ex­is­tence and vi­a­bil­i­ty of small is­land States."

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This sto­ry was pro­duced as part of the 2022 Cli­mate Change Me­dia Part­ner­ship, a jour­nal­ism fel­low­ship or­ga­nized by In­ternews' Earth Jour­nal­ism Net­work and the Stan­ley Cen­ter for Peace and Se­cu­ri­ty.