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THE QUESTION OF setting up a fund to help countries that have been hit by devastating effects of climate change made its way onto the agenda of a UN climate conference for the first time in 2022 after 27 years of meetings.
With most of the heavy lifting on figuring out the details left until this year’s conference, the COP28 summit commencing in Dubai today is expected to make important decisions about the world’s first dedicated loss and damage fund.
What does the concept of loss and damage mean? How have countries suffered because of the climate crisis – and why has a seemingly simple idea taken so long to be put on the table?
It’s one of the major issues that arose last year and will be put to the test again next week. Other important topics include the results of a ‘Global Stocktake’ expected to show how far behind the world is on preventing temperatures from rising and whether countries will make any significant promises to phase out fossil fuels.
The term loss and damage refers to the way that countries, particularly ones most vulnerable to climate change, are being affected by the climate crisis – the losses and damages that they have suffered.
The United Nations explains it as: “Loss and damage arising from the adverse effects of climate change can include those related to extreme weather events but also slow onset events, such as sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinisation, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and desertification.”
The term is also often used as a shorthand to refer to measures that can be taken to provide support to those vulnerable countries. When a report says something like “campaigners were calling for loss and damage to be prioritised”, it means they were pushing for countries to do something to help fix the problem (not, as it might seem at first glance, to make it worse).
The scale of recent changes to the climate is “unprecedented” over hundreds and thousands of years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and many parts of the world are already feeling the effects of those changes.
Heatwaves, droughts, floods, storms, crop failures, land degradation – the ways that the climate crisis is hitting developing countries are multifaceted. While there are parts of the world that have long been more exposed to extreme weather events like heatwaves, climate change has been shown to make these incidents more likely to occur, more frequent, and more intense.
Countries in eastern Africa have gone five seasons without rainfall, which has led to severe droughts and hunger, while countries like Pakistan and India have been hit by devastating floods in recent years.
In the last few months alone, climate change has been found to have caused or exacerbated:
All of these extreme weather events cause damage and disruption to lives, livelihoods, nature and communities.
In financial terms, research published this week by the University of Delaware estimated that the impacts of climate change knocked 1.8% off the world’s GDP last year, or 6.3% if weighted according to the size of the populations affected.
The losses were due to events like climate-caused disruptions to agriculture and manufacturing, reduced productivity in some places due to high heat, and knock-on effects on global trade and investments.
Lead author James Rising said that the world is “trillions of dollars poorer because of climate change and most of that burden has fallen on poor countries”.
He said the findings showed that the impacts of climate change were “concentrated in “low-income countries and tropical regions that typically have more population and less GDP”, with southeast Asia and southern Africa most affected.
COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt marked the first time that loss and damage appeared on a COP agenda. Even getting it on the agenda wasn’t a sure bet, with some countries reluctant to agree to putting it on the table.
When the agenda was adopted with loss and damage included, climate justice campaigners welcomed that it was finally up for discussion but cautioned that decisions should be made by listening to the countries who are most vulnerable to the affects of the climate crisis.
Throughout negotiations, contention centred around questions of who would pay into the fund who would benefit from it, with questions in particular about whether China should be contributing to or drawing down from the fund – once squarely considered a developing country, it’s now one of the world’s heaviest emitters, but has millions of people living in poverty at risk from climate threats.
US-China relations play a big role in that: the Biden administration is adamant that China should be putting money into the fund, whereas China argues that the US has more responsibility historically for climate change.
After two weeks of ups and downs, negotiators agreed on setting up a dedicated fund to address loss and damage, but the specifics were put off to the COP28 cycle.
Over the last year, a Transitional Committee – on which Ireland shared a seat with Germany — worked on developing, refining and compromising on how the fund would actually work.
A tentative agreement was reached on a text at the start of November. It sets out that countries would be “urged”, but not required, to contribute. Some initial negotiating drafts had specific targets for the level of funding, but these were subsequently removed.
The fund would be administered by the World Bank for at least four years.
The text says the fund should be launched in 2024 and would require that developing countries have a seat on the board that oversees it.
The Journal understands that Irish delegation would like to see the text signed off on in the early days of this COP, both so that countries can start making pledges but also to set a positive tone for other matters being discussed at the conference.
However, that will all depend on whether negotiators agree on the text or not. It’s also possible the matter could be re-opened and battled out once again.
In a joint statement with the UAE’s COP28 President Sultan Ahmad Al-Jaber, EU Commissioner for Climate Wopke Hoekstra announced that the EU will make a “substantial” contribution to the fund, though he did not provide a specific sum.
“The COP28 Presidency and the Commissioner emphasised the importance of operationalising the Loss and Damage funding arrangements at COP28 including early pledges,” the statement said.
The EU’s position is that China should pay into the fund, not benefit from it.
Hoekstra has said that “with all that affluence and with all that economic power also comes responsibility, and that is the case for China”, adding it “is also for others”.
He also said he believes the fund should pay out money to “only a limited number of countries, rather than for whoever experiences climate disasters”.
However, negotiating blocks for developing countries and many climate justice campaigners have called for a much wider scope applied to who can receive help from the fund.
The UN has estimated that by 2030, $2 trillion will be needed every year to fund measures to adapt to climate change and provide relevant aid to developing countries, including loss and damage.
A report published by Christian Aid Ireland and Trócaire earlier this month estimated that Ireland’s fair share of contributions to loss and damage finance will be at least €1.5 billion per year by 2030.
The other side of the coin is mitigation – taking actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate disasters in the first place. Crucial to this COP’s mitigation discussions will be whether countries agree on any significant measures to drive down the burning of fossil fuels.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will be in attendance on Saturday and Sunday alongside around 160 other world leaders.
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Why does the article leave out the pertinent point that there is still no proof the nerve agent came from Russia and the UK Home Office is busy scrubbing old tweets claiming otherwise.
@Rodney Pickering: I think my favourite conspiracy of all on this one, that the UK did this deliberately to have a reason to blame Russia and introduce sanctions on Russians… completely ignoring that the British have saved these people’s lives… I keep seeing this nonsense in comment sections, buy, buy, buy tin foil folks. Now is the time, before the price sky rockets.
@Ciaran Ó Fallúin:
It’s hilarious – first of all if the British were responsible why would they choose to do it right on the doorstep of their own chemical weapons facility? Even a fox is smart enough not to kill lambs right beside it’s den to avoid drawing attention to itself!
Secondly, why would they want to deter a whole generation of potential future spies from leaking sensitive information about Russia?
And thirdly why would they try and save the lives of the people they wanted to kill?
@Walt Jabsco: Afraid I missed the hilarious part of this terrible attempted murder. What’s not funny either is the disregard for fair play and natural justice, to convict without any evidence except ‘ highly likely’, everything points to, etc, coming from one side.
Jumping to conclusions and going off half cock to justify prejudices, without any regard to the consequences.
@Rodney Pickering: cue the new accounts and bots saying the same thing
@Michael farrelly: And cue a ‘spontaneous’ display of supporting upticks Ceaușescu himself would have been proud of.
@Jointheclubtoo:
The attempted murders certainly weren’t funny – the predictable rash of online conspiracy theories is (all without a shred of proof, and mostly coming from the very same commenters demanding to see proof of Russian involvement).
@Michael farrelly: troll
@Walt Jabsco: “Why then, asked somebody, had Putin spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Putin’s cunning. He had seemed to want to assassinate traitors hiding abroad, simply as a maneuver to get the British themselves to kill Skripal, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. Now that Skripal was out of the way, the plan to defend Russia could go forward without his interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a number of times, ‘Tactics, comrades, tactics!’ skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh.”
“The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions”
@Rodney Pickering: probably because the author assumes you and your colleagues will here in the comments section
This is very interesting,
Last week Yulia was reported to be in a stable condition after falling into a coma following the chemical attack. Moscow-based relative Viktoria Skripal told the Guardian that she had spoken to Yulia and that a statement would soon be released by Russian news agencies – “even in English.”
“She said everything is fine and she is doing OK,” Viktoria told the Guardian over the telephone. “That’s all I’m going to say.”
Viktoria also recorded the phone conversation with Yulia which was later played on a talk show on TV network Russia-1. Yulia can be heard telling her relative that she is calling from a phone that is “just temporary”. The 33-year-old also said that neither she nor her father had health problem that could not be fixed.
In the recording, Viktoria can be heard telling her cousin “If I get my visa tomorrow, on Monday I will fly to you”, to which Yulia responded, “nobody will give you a visa.”
At one point in the conversation, Yulia cut off Viktoria from going into depth about what happened, insisting “later, let’s talk later. In short, everything is OK.”
When asked about her father Sergei Skripal, who is still understood to be in a critical condition, Yulia can be heard replying that “Everything’s OK. He’s resting now, he’s sleeping. Everyone’s health is OK. No one has had any irreversible [harm].
“I’m being discharged soon,” she added.
Seems the “Lethal nerve agent” wasn`t so “Lethal” after all…
@Pearse Mc Mullen: You can fully recover from nerve agent poisoning. You can also be permanently damaged due to the destruction of nerve tissue.
It depends on many factors. The fact that she has recovered does not mean that this was not a nerve agent attack, nor does it mean the nerve agent wasn’t lethal.
Lethality is dose-dependent. If we assume her father was the target of the attack, it makes sense that she hasn’t suffered as much as him, because he was exposed to a higher dose of the agent.
@Pearse Mc Mullen:
I’m not sure what conclusions you’re trying to insinuate from her not wanting to go into details of the poisoning.
Obviously she’s not going to want anyone to overhear if she thought the British were responsible, but equally
if she thought the Kremlin were responsible she’d hardly want to just come out and say so knowing that they were probably listening in to the call.
It’s also possible that on a human level she just didn’t think it was the right time and place to talk about it – maybe she just wanted to concentrate on her recovery.
@ihcalaM: The emergency services have been issued with antidotes to nerve agents for the last few years, if they have the combo pens, then I would expect that they would have received instruction on how to identify the symptoms of an attack.
@Walt Jabsco: wow, conclusions i am trying to insinuate….., calm down mate, all i said was i found it interesting, and giving a whole different perspective on the issue, according to her, they are both going to make a full recovery.
@David Goodman: Not sure what your point is, though. It’s possible that the emergency services were quick in their response and correctly diagnosed the ongoing cholinergic crisis (the symptoms are pretty dramatic) and were able to limit the damage with an antimuscarinic antidote. None of that would mean a lethal nerve agent wasn’t used. It’s also possible that the dose wasn’t high enough, that the formulation was incorrect or that the delivery was insufficient.
Let’s see what the OPCW have to say when they finish their investigation.
@Pearse Mc Mullen:
So why post small random details unless you think they’re somehow significant??
@ihcalaM: Most of what has been so far reported in newspapers is spurious and concocted to fill the narrative, even the latest BBC reports go no further than to say that Skripal is ‘critical but stable’. It seems to me that whatever poison or agent that was used was counteracted quickly by the hospital using an antedote such as Antropine. The conclusion of the British government suggests that there was Russian involvement, but where is the proof and why accuse them without sufficient evidence of where the poison originated. We certainly don’t know anything about how the Skripals earn their money these days, but whatever it is with a nice house and BMW car must be paying quite well it seems to me.
@Chris Kirk:
Skripal was reported to be still working for MI6. Not sure how true that is, but if so it would be another reason for the Kremlin to want to whack him.
@Chris Kirk: Saying he’s “critical but stable” is neither spurious nor concocted, it’s exactly what they’ve been told by the medics.
Leo and simon are after making a pigs ear in rowing in with the UK on this.innocent until proven guilty.they jumped the gun and need to come out and make an apology to Russia
Leo and Simon after getting eggs on their faces big time and gave away our neutrality in a heart beat …. suppose they’ll have to double down on the efforts to avoid giving the public what they really want : an election !
@dick dastardly: I don’t think so
@dick dastardly: If they rowed in with anyone, it wasn’t just the UK. The US, EU, NATO, Canada, Australia etc.
Ah sure, they’re all up to no good.
Except the Russian trustworthy political and money folk.
@wattsed: Whoa, its not Russia being trustworthy or the others being no good, when you make accusations, instant ones in this case, the onus is on you to bring credible evidence to back them up,
@Jointheclubtoo: Isn’t that why the OPCW are investigating – an OPCW that lists Russia as a member ?
Guess we have to wait a week, personally I haven’t seen the evidence provided to other democratic nations. Must’ve been rather compulsive for them to execute their actions tho before waiting for OPCW findings.
Great to hear. I wonder when her family will be allowed visit.
@Cal Mooney: Depends on the British issuing a visa.
@Chris Kirk: Depends on her being eligible for one, or has she actually applied for one ?
This girl needs to keep her mouth closed until she gets home or she could end up like Dr David Kelly.
@Kieran Woods: gets home to where ? Russia ? You’re joking, right ?
@Kieran Woods: Yeah. Who’d want to end up like that poor man, with conspiracy theorists swarming your grave with placards and giving your family even more grief.
@ihcalaM: I wouldn’t call the the two paramedics who were called to the scene of Dr. Kelly’s death and questioned the ‘official’ cause of death conspiracy theorists.
@Kieran Woods:
Yeah she’d want to be careful in case they might kill her after just saving her life….
@JimmyMc: I’d call the people that desecrated his grave with their rubbish (to the extent that his family had to have his body exhumed and moved) conspiracy theorists.
In fact, that’s exactly what I just said, isn’t it?
As for the paramedics, they simply said that they were perplexed at the lack of blood as a cause of death based on their prior experience in the field. This, of course, wasn’t taking into account the fact that Dr. Kelly had taken a substantial number of painkillers (beyond the therapeutic dose) and had clinically silent coronary artery disease, which forensic experts have pointed to as major contributing factors.
It also didn’t take into account the fact that blood loss would be very difficult to estimate in an outdoor environment where blood seeps into the ground.
The Hutton inquiry was woefully inadequate, that’s something I’ll agree with. The peddling of conspiracy based on precisely zero evidence (which isn’t what those paramedics did, mind you), I won’t.
@Michael farrelly: Yep, that’s appears to be her wishes. She has lived safely there so far.
Great news that she appears to be recovering. Wish the same for her Father, and that their physical and mental health don’t have issues. Same to the policeman.
Food poisoning.
@Sebastian Wilson: Possible, but not in the time frame. Takes considerably longer. And the others that ate at the same place ?
Are there any photos of them not drinking pints?
have your say