Poor and island states have called on rich countries to provide more funds to help them recover from disasters such as storms, floods and drought, in updated climate plans submitted to the UN.
While rich countries mainly focus on carbon reduction measures in their national contributions to the Paris Agreement, poor countries have presented their plans to strengthen climate adaptation and deal with economic loss and damage. and others associated with global warming.
In climate plans filed before UN deadline of December 31, 2020, several countries highlighted the increasing costs they face due to severe climate impacts. Emissions reductions and adaptation efforts are not enough to prevent climate change from destroying homes and livelihoods in their countries.
The Minister of the Environment of the Maldives, Hussain Rasheed Hassan told Climate Home that the low-lying island nation “will be lost to the world” if the sea level rises faster than the coastal defenses.
“We believe that we should be compensated for the impacts caused by climate change. We are not responsible. Our total emissions are 0.003% [of the global total]”Hassan said, adding that the country needs about $ 8.8 billion to provide coastal protection for its 185 inhabited islands.
The Maldives plans to put in place climate risk insurance mechanisms to build resilience to climate loss and damage, the island state said in its updated national contribution.
“We need to develop the financing capacity so that any shocks that we will face in the future can be mitigated. Our economy and our life are linked to the oceans, ”said Hassan.
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There was one “meteoric” rise in climate disasters over the past 20 years, which have resulted in global losses of $ 2.97 trillion, according to the UN.
For countries vulnerable to climate change, loss and damage is a key issue that they believe should be high on the agenda of the COP26 summit in November. Rich countries, however, have long resisted investment.
In 2013 the Warsaw International Mechanism was set up to deal with loss and damage, but without a clear mandate to mobilize financial support. In 2015 countries agreed that references to “loss and damage” in the Paris Agreement do not constitute a basis for liability or compensation.
“The key issue that remains is the relationship between loss and damage and climate finance,” Spencer Thomas, who helped draft Grenada’s national contribution, told Climate Home News.
Grenada’s updated climate plan includes a specific commitment to deal with loss and damage. “This will include building resilience to respond to impacts beyond the limits of adaptation and human mobility and settlements,” the plan says.
The small island nation is already experiencing severe climate impacts, Thomas said. “We are seeing a decline in the productivity of our coral reefs due to heavy rains and pollution. Hurricanes have destroyed our forests. How do we prepare our economies for this?
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In the Warsaw Mechanism, loss and damage is defined as a sub-category of adaptation, rather than as a problem in its own right. As a result, developing countries say the issue has not received the recognition and funding it deserves.
“Small island states demand ease of access [to funding] and that mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage are also represented in the climate finance landscape, ”said Thomas.
One of the obstacles is the lack of comparable data on the extent of climate damage, Hassan said. “We need to develop international standards and measurement mechanisms so that loss and damage can be assessed in a more scientific way. The Warsaw International Mechanism is not able to handle this.
Nepal has also placed a strong emphasis on loss and damage in its updated submission to the UN. The country plans to establish a national loss and damage strategy by 2025 and to allocate specific funds to this issue.
Nepal, which has among the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the world, is very vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Nepal’s Himalayan glaciers have lost almost half a meter of ice every year since the turn of the century and floods and landslides are frequent.
“Even though emissions are quickly reduced, residual climate impacts persist due to long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Loss and damage will be just as important for mitigation and adaptation – we cannot get away from it, ”Manjeet Dhakal, Least Developed Countries Team Leader at Climate Analytics, told Climate Home News .
He said Nepal’s loss and damage strategy would likely cover a wide range of sectors, including agriculture, tourism and hydropower generation, all of which are already suffering from climate disasters.
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