Climate and Us | IPCC’s focus on ‘loss and damage’ is a message to world leaders

Climate and Us | IPCC’s focus on ‘loss and damage’ is a message to world leaders
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Working Group II report published last week spells out that extensive and, in some cases, irreversible damage to ecosystems is already done due to the impacts of the climate crisis so far.

In a 1.5 degree Celsius warming scenario, catastrophic impacts will occur more frequently and our capacity to adapt to those impacts will be compromised.

The scientific consensus on impacts that have already occurred. The vulnerability of poor and ecologically fragile areas in South Asia, West, Central- and East Africa, Central and South America, Small Island Developing States, and the Arctic, and the limited adaptive capacity of humans and ecosystems bring new knowledge to policymakers now.

But the IPCC has gone further to address an issue of major contention in the global climate negotiations — “loss and damage”.

Slow onset extreme weather events like sea-level rise or long-term drought-like conditions can cause loss and damage to humans and ecosystems. These include economic losses, harm to health, well-being and cultural practices in many regions. 

Developing countries have been demanding that developed countries, responsible for historical carbon emissions, compensate for these losses and damages. Expectedly, developed nations — particularly the United States — have been wary of any such framework that will push for monetary compensation or specify the historical responsibility of developed nations.

Loss and Damage was one of the most debated issues of negotiation at the Glasgow climate change conference (COP26) last year. But the demands of developing nations were muzzled by the end of the meet.

The Glasgow Pact, an agreement which came out of COP26, instead of specifying how finance and compensation will be delivered for Loss and Damage, only talks of setting up a “dialogue between parties, relevant organisations, and stakeholders” to discuss how Loss and Damage can be addressed. Delegates, activists from developing and vulnerable countries were livid after reading the final text. The G77+China had proposed a Glasgow Facility on loss and damage, which was also junked in the final text.

The IPCC report, possibly for the first time recognises the concept. “Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability. Some development and adaptation efforts have reduced vulnerability. Across sectors and regions, the most vulnerable people and systems are observed to be disproportionately affected,” the summary for policymakers (SPM) of the report states.

IPCC states the term “losses and damages” refers to adverse observed impacts and/or projected risks and can be economic and/or non-economic.

During the two-week approval process for the SPM between February 14 and 27, there were long-drawn discussions on the issue of Loss and Damage according to a bulletin by Third World Network issued on March 4. Government representatives from 196 nations and scientists went over the SPM line by line, discussing each finding before giving their final approval.

“The United States (US) in particular was opposed to [the] use of the term “losses and damages” in the SPM, and made efforts to remove the term, but it did not succeed, due to opposition from developing countries. It was clear that through its persistent arguments, the US wanted to delink ‘losses and damages’ from the political discussion under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement,” the TWN bulletin said adding that the US and other developed nations managed to dilute a sentence which said losses and damages had increased due to intensification of cyclones and sea-level rise.

It’s still a significant development that IPCC now recognises losses and damages associated with the climate crisis and the fact that these are mainly endured by the poor. The IPCC has also recognised that impacts of the climate crisis are inequitable.

“Vulnerability of ecosystems and people to climate change differs substantially among and within regions (very high confidence), driven by patterns of intersecting socio-economic development, unsustainable ocean and land use, inequity, marginalization, historical and ongoing patterns of inequity such as colonialism, and governance (high confidence),” the SPM states.

This recognition of Loss and Damage by the IPCC will help vulnerable countries negotiate a framework for compensation in future. It’s time that developed nations own up their contribution to the crisis and compensate the poorest and most vulnerable regions of the world for Loss and Damage.

From the climate crisis to air pollution, from questions of the development-environment tradeoffs to India’s voice in international negotiations on the environment, HT’s Jayashree Nandi brings her deep domain knowledge in a weekly column

The views expressed are personal

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