Emerging threatsRisk analysis for common ground on climate loss and damage
The Paris Agreement included groundbreaking text on the need for a mechanism to help identify risks beyond adaptation and support the victims of climate-related loss and damage — but how exactly it will work remains unclear. The question of how to deal with dangerous climate change as being experienced and perceived by developing countries and communities has been one of the most contentious questions in international climate negotiations.
The Paris Agreement included groundbreaking text on the need for a mechanism to help identify risks beyond adaptation and support the victims of climate-related loss and damage — but how exactly it will work remains unclear. New IIASA research lends insight to policymakers on how to move forward.
The issue of “dangerous” climate change has been fundamental for the international climate negotiations, informing the adoption of the 2 °C and 1.5 °C goals. The question of how to deal with dangerous climate change as being experienced and perceived by developing countries and communities has been one of the most contentious questions in international climate negotiations.
“The impacts of climate change are being felt on all continents and in every ocean on the planet,” says Reinhard Mechler, a researcher at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Universities of Vienna and University of Graz. In these cases, say Mechler and coauthor Thomas Schinko, countries need assistance in responding. Yet there has been a contentious debate between vulnerable countries and developed nations about the extent of such assistance and the form that it should take.
IIASA says that this debate was institutionalized in 2013 via the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage and further endorsed by the Paris Agreement in 2015, yet the exact remit of Loss and Damage has not been clarified. There is space for countries to come to agreement on the topic and proceed with action, say researchers. In a new article published in the journal Science, the researchers lay out a framework for loss and damage in terms of supporting measures that can help vulnerable people survive, adapt, and even become more resilient in the face of irreversible climate change impacts.
The article comes just ahead of the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting (COP22) in Marrakesh, Morocco, which begins on 7 November.
While the 2015 Paris Agreement aimed to limit climate change to between 1.5°C and 2°C above preindustrial levels, even this level of warming could lead to irreversible impacts for some of the most vulnerable nations, for example low-lying countries that are vulnerable to sea-level rise. There are already severe impacts today: in the small island nation of Kiribati, increasing soil salinity due to sea level rise and water intrusion is putting severe stress on agriculture to the point where food security is at stake and food imports are being ramped up
