IPCC Assessment in depth, Part 11: What does the report say about ‘loss and damage’?

  • Published on March 12th, 2022

The threat that climate change poses to human well-being and the health of the planet is “unequivocal”, says the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In this in-depth Q&A series, Carbon Brief unpacks the key findings of the report and the developments since the IPCC’s last assessment. (Read previous section here)

The sixth IPCC assessment on how climate change impacts the worldBy Carbon Brief

What does the report say about ‘loss and damage’?

“Loss and damage” is highlighted in the report as an area of increasing importance in both international climate policy and climate science.

Broadly, this concept refers to harms caused by climate change, including both rapid-onset events, such as hurricanes, and slow-onset events, such as gradual sea level rise.

The topic was a rallying point at the recent COP26 summit in Glasgow as vulnerable nations unsuccessfully pushed for a new funding facility to address such impacts. It is expected to remain a highly contested issue in future climate negotiations.

Initially pushed by small-island developing states to describe the impacts of rising sea levels – and, thus, seek compensation – the concept has expanded in scope over the years.

Different actors have defined loss and damage in different ways, using it to describe both climate change impacts and responses to those impacts. The report identifies a handful of these “perspectives”:

  • Adaptation and mitigation: Stresses the need to avoid dangerous warming as all human-induced climate impacts are linked to loss and damage.
  • Risk management: Emphasises the connections between disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and humanitarian efforts.
  • Limits to adaptation: Focuses on “residual loss and damage”, meaning the impacts that remain beyond the limits of adaptation and mitigation.
  • Existential: Highlights the inevitable harm and unavoidable transformation for some people and systems, resulting from climate change.

The IPCC’s first assessment of the scientific literature on loss and damage came in its 1.5C report in 2018, following an intervention by concerned member countries. It identified a rise in “residual risks” as temperatures increased, such as the decline of coral reefs and coastal livelihoods.

The 2018 report concluded there was “not one definition” of loss and damage and the new WG2 report concludes that this “ambiguity has persisted and a policy space for [loss and damage] has not clearly been delimited”. This vagueness and lack of a “concrete remit” makes policy formulation “complex”, it notes.

Nevertheless, the report describes a “coalescence in dialogue” among scientists, civil society and policy makers that includes “risk management, limits to adaptation, existential risk, finance and support including liability, compensation and litigation”.

It notes that researchers have begun compiling loss and damage inventories, including some of the more intangible aspects such as cultural loss. Despite this, it says systematic risk assessments of loss and damage and adaptation limits “remain scarce”.

The report also notes that there is less discussion of the “existential dimension” of loss and damage, although this is often inferred when scientists discuss issues such as the migration and relocation of communities.

While there has been some discussion of early-warning systems and other measures that would actually reduce risk, the report states that “dialogue has strongly focused on risk finance” to pay for the impact of residual risks, particularly through insurance schemes.

It notes that researchers have explored both potential sources and mechanisms for leveraging new finance to pay for loss and damage.

One study found that half of the academic and grey literature surveyed mentioned compensation, even though the idea of rich nations owing a climate debt to vulnerable nations is highly contentious. Others warn that litigation risks for governments and businesses may increase “as the science, particularly on attribution matures further”.

Overall, the report concludes:

“Any estimate of [loss and damage] finance needs and spending, however, remains highly speculative, as long as its exact remit including in relation to adaptation has not been clarified politically.”

The report also emphasises that assessment of non-economic losses and damages – including loss of societal beliefs and values, cultural heritage and biodiversity – is “lacking and needs more attention”.

Examples cited in the report include large-scale loss of life and its mental health and behavioural impacts; the loss of cultural heritage sites and “sense of place” after flooding; current and future “loss of identity” for communities in glacial and island regions; and the impact of wildfire smoke on vulnerable social groups in Amazonia.

The authors say that aggregate losses and damages would be higher if such values were considered.

The complexity of defining loss and damage extends to the term “loss and damage” itself.

As the glossary explains, the WG2 report uses capitalised “Loss and Damage (L&D)” to refer to political negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and notes that lower-case references to “losses and damages” are used in scientific literature to refer to residual effects from observed impacts and projected risks.

According to BBC News, IPCC scientists had hoped to use the term “losses and damages” as it had a “different, less political meaning” to “loss and damage”.

Despite this, the news website reported that officials from “several richer governments” at the approval session for the report objected to any inclusion of the concept, due to concerns that it would raise the status of the issue in climate negotiations. Wealthy nations have long resisted efforts to set aside specific funding for loss and damage or accept liability for it based on their historical emissions.

According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, which reports from inside the negotiations, Norway and the US rejected a proposal by a group of global south nations to refer to “economic losses and damages from climate change” instead of “economic damages from climate change”.

In the end, while WG2 in its entirety still includes many references to “loss and damage”, in some parts the term was replaced with “losses and damages”.

The SPM – the most politically relevant section of the report – includes no references to “loss and damage”, but does include 15 references to “losses and damages”. It states with high confidence that:

“With increasing global warming, losses and damages will increase and additional human and natural systems will reach adaptation limits.”

During the negotiations, the US had pushed for “losses and damages” to be replaced with the word “impacts” in the SPM, reported Climate Home News.

Ultimately, while this attempted change appears to have been unsuccessful, it resulted in a reference to “widespread losses and damages to nature and people” being replaced with “widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages”.

All sections:

    1. What is the IPCC report?
    2. How is climate change affecting land ecosystems?
    3. What impact is global warming having on marine life?
    4. How is climate change affecting the world’s water?
    5. What does the IPCC report say about impacts on food and agriculture?
    6. What risks does climate change pose to the world’s cities?
    7. What does the report say about public health, conflict and migration?
    8. How does climate change affect poverty and progress towards the sustainable development goals?
    9. How is the world adapting to climate change?
    10. Are there limits to what adaptation can achieve?
    11. What does the report say about ‘loss and damage’?
    12. What the latest IPCC report says about carbon fee and dividend

Authors:

Aruna Chandrasekhar holds an MSc in environmental change and management from the University of Oxford. She previously worked as a freelance journalist for a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, Scroll and Caravan.

Daisy Dunne holds a BSc in biology from the University of Bristol and a science journalism MA from City, University of London. She was The Independent’s climate correspondent from November 2020 to 2021. Prior to this, she was Carbon Brief’s science writer from 2017 to 2020.

Josh Gabbatiss covers climate and energy policy. Josh holds a BSc in zoology from the University of Bristol. He previously worked as science correspondent at The Independent and prior to that was a freelance journalist for a variety of scientific publications including New Scientist and BBC Earth.

Robert McSweeney is our science editor. He holds an MEng in mechanical engineering from the University of Warwick and an MSc in climate change from the University of East Anglia. He previously spent eight years working on climate change projects at the consultancy firm Atkins.

Ayesha Tandon holds an MSci in Natural Sciences, specialising in Climate Science, from The University of Exeter. She previously worked at the UK Met Office as a Climate Science Communicator.

Dr Giuliana Viglione is our food systems journalist. Giuliana has a PhD in environmental science, specialising in oceanography, from the California Institute of Technology. She previously worked at Nature and Chemical & Engineering News and freelanced for several scientific publications.

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