Developing country negotiators at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, supported by environmental organizations, have declared today to be Loss and Damages Day – focusing on the need to rapidly reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to avoid even more loss and damages than we’re suffering already and on the need for a robust loss and damages mechanism.
What are loss and damages you ask? White House Climate Advisor John Holdren has been quoted as saying:
“We will respond to climate change with some mix of mitigation, adaptation, and suffering; all that remains to be determined is the mix.”
Loss and damages are efforts – financial and otherwise – to measure and deal with suffering, in those cases when the world has collectively failed to act to prevent or prepare for climate change.
Loss and damages in Canada include the economic devastation caused to BC’s communities by the Mountain Pine Beetle and floods like those suffered two years ago in Alberta.
In developing countries they include the recent heat wave in India, devastating cyclones in Vanuatu and the Philippines. Less obvious examples might include communities that need to be moved due to the creeping impacts of climate change.
Canada, one of the world’s larger emitters of greenhouse gases and a wealthy country, is well placed to provide economic and other aid to Canadian communities that suffer these types of impacts.
India, Vanuatu and the Philippines are far more limited in their resources, and every dollar used to help the victims of climate change is one less dollar available for other crucial needs, including preparing for future heat-waves and cyclones. Since resources and infrastructure may be more limited in the first place, the people are that much more vulnerable to start with.
As many are saying here, we are already suffering these types of climate impacts, despite a global increase in temperature of less than 0.8°C. ECO, the daily newsletter of Climate Action Network International, today focused on Loss and Damages, explaining:
In just the last 5 years, thousands have died and millions more have been affected by unprecedented extreme weather events, such as drought in the Eastern Horn of Africa and the Sahel region; Hurricane Sandy in the USA; typhoons in the Philippines (such as Haiyan); Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu; and recent floods and heat waves in India.
Having seen the devastation from 0.8°C warming so far, ECO wonders: Can we even bear nearly double the current temperature rise in a 1.5°C world? In reality, the impacts of increasing temperatures will not be linear. The impacts in a 1.5°C world will be far worse than double the intensity of those that we are currently experiencing. What will happen at 2, 3 or 4°C is unimaginable.
The battle for loss and damages
International negotiators for the past few years have struggled with whether and how to support developing countries that are hit with climate impacts that outstrip their capacity to protect their communities. Indeed, Pacific Island negotiators have been raising such issues for decades, but the rest of the international community has only really grappled with the discussion over the past few years.
In 2013, in Warsaw, developing country negotiators walked out of climate talks when Canada and a handful of other developed countries tried to block consideration of loss and damages. Canada feared that discussion of loss and damages would lead to discussion of (gasp!) compensation. However, the negotiators finally agreed to create the Warsaw Loss and Damages Mechanism, now known (in the spirit of turning everything in climate negotiations into an acronym) as WIM (for Warsaw International Mechanism).
But this is a critical year for the loss and damages mechanism. Developed countries have not put forward their nominees for the WIM Executive, leading to concerns that they are seeking to delay the new mechanism’s work. Some versions of the text being discussed by delegates even propose to remove references to the WIM. And there are still many unanswered questions about what types of damages fall under the loss and damages mechanism.
There was encouraging news, on Monday, from the G7 meeting in Schloss Elmau, where leaders announced plans to:
increase by up to 400 million the number of people in the most vulnerable developing countries who have access to direct or indirect insurance coverage against the negative impact of climate change related hazards by 2020 and support the development of early warning systems in the most vulnerable countries.
Of course at this stage there are little details about how this insurance scheme will work, and where the funding will come from (beyond an initial contribution by the Germans). However, this emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable from climate change impacts is broadly consistent with the purpose of the Loss and Damages discussion.
But we're going to need a strong commitment to addressing loss and damages in the final negotiations in Paris later this year.
Reducing emissions and loss and damages
There is no doubt that developing countries have played little or no role in causing climate change. There is equally no doubt that Canada has caused more harm than our small numbers would suggest. As we wrote at the start of the Bonn climate conference:
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial revolution to present are about 2.2% of global emissions, and mix with the emissions from other countries, causing climate damages in communities around the world. If we focus on climate change impacts (400,000 deaths and US$700 Billion [according to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor]), Canada’s GHG emissions can be said to be responsible for 8,800 deaths and $15.4 Billion in damages each year.
Faced with these types of losses – even if we don’t ultimately end up paying for all of them – the smart thing would be to get on a path to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
Canada, along with the rest of the G7 leaders, has promised to stop burning fossil fuels by 2100. The actual language of the pledge is a commitment to “decarbonise the global economy in the course of this century,” so there is room to act more quickly. The fact that we are finally recognizing the need to decarbonise is good news, but that doesn’t change the fact that we do need to reduce GHG emissions as soon as possible. Each additional tonne of CO2 that we collectively emit represents additional harm to our planet’s atmosphere and to our economies and livelihoods.
While the G7 recommitted to avoiding a 2 °C increase in global temperature, there is increasing concern expressed by scientists and country delegates in Bonn that even 2 °C is too much, and that 1.5 °C is a far safer, and still achievable target.
We’ve already seen the types of climate harm that communities in both developing and developed countries are suffering, and we’re nowhere close to a 1.5 °C temperature rise yet. Do we really want to risk the types of damages that a 2 °C increase in global average temperatures would bring us?
One thing is for sure: if we knew that Canada would need to pay our fair share of the climate-related havoc that we’re causing, our government would be doing more to stop digging the climate-hole that we find ourselves in.
By Andrew Gage, Staff Counsel
Photo from Save the Children, showing a health clinic in Vanuatu after Cyclone Pam, used under a creative commons licence.