Landmark deal at climate talk on fund for damage

Landmark deal at climate talk on fund for damage

Subject: Environment 

Context-

• As the UN climate summit in Egypt on Sunday created history by deciding to establish a fund to address loss and damage, experts in India welcomed it as a testament to the tenacity of climate-vulnerable countries and a warning shot to polluters that they can no longer go scot-free with their climate destruction.

Establishment of Transitional committee-

• Governments also agreed to establish a ‘transitional committee’ to make recommendations on how to operationalize both the new funding arrangements and the fund at COP28 next year.
• The first meeting of the transitional committee is expected to take place before the end of March 2023.
• Santiago Network for Loss and Damage- Vision is to catalyze technical assistance to developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
  • CoP 25, Chile (held in Madriad in 2019)- Parties established the Santiago network as part of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM).
  • CoP 26, Glasgow, U.K.- Parties decided on the functions of the Santiago Network and issued a call for submissions.
  • CoP 27, Sherm- Al- Sheikh (Egypt)- Parties agreed on the institutional arrangements to operationalize the Santiago Network.

Concerns that are still unresolved are-

• Definition of loss and damage
• Criteria for vulnerable countries (which country should get the fund)
• Mechanism of funding
• Developed countries versus major economies

What is loss and damage?

• The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has two definitions for ‘loss and damage’.

1. The term ‘losses and damages’ refers to the economic and non-economic impacts of climate change, including extreme and slow onset events, in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. It’s destructive, irreversible, and cannot be addressed by mitigation and adaptation measures.
2. Loss and Damage (upper case), or L&D, is a “political debate under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) following the establishment of the Warsaw Mechanism on L&D in 2013” to discuss losses and damages.

• Loss and damage occur when the frequency and intensity of existing climate impacts increase to such an extent that countries and communities are not equipped to handle it.
• Their capacity to prepare, cope, recover, recoup or rebuild is no longer there.

Where does the term ‘L&D’ come from?

• L&D was brought up as a demand in 1991 by the island country of Vanuatu, which was representing the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).
• Thirty-one years and 26 COPs later, this demand has not been realised.
• Since then, about 189 million people have suffered the effects of extreme weather-related events in developing countries, every year, according to The Cost of Delay, a report published in October 2022 by the climate advocacy group L&D Collaboration (L&DC).
• At the COP26 in Glasgow, the G77, a coalition of 134 developing countries, and China, proposed the Loss and Damage Finance Facility (LDFF), a dedicated stream of finance to specifically address losses and damages.
• It is finally approved in CoP 27, at Sherm-Al- Sheikh, Egypt.