Climate-related loss and damage is a key issue facing many climate-vulnerable countries. From impacts on food systems to loss of income, climate risks are impacting communities as well as ecosystems.
In order to better avert, minimise, and address climate-induced loss and damage, it is important to understand the existing gaps, needs, and challenges. This includes needs related to technical capacities, data, and data management mechanisms, as well as the need to calculate and address loss and damage incurred due to climate impacts.
Sri Lanka, in its global commitments on climate change under the Paris Agreement, focuses on addressing climate-induced loss and damage. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of Sri Lanka include commitments related to climate-induced loss and damage and the revised NDCs submitted in 2021 carried and further continued these commitments to better tackle loss and damage.
Categories of loss and damage
Climate-induced loss and damage can be caused by sudden-/rapid- or slow-onset events and processes. Sudden-onset events could be described as single, discrete events that unfold over short time periods (days, hours). Slow-onset events and processes are those that evolve gradually from incremental changes and often take place over many years.
Among the examples of sudden-onset events faced by Sri Lanka are floods, storms, heatwaves, heavy rains, strong winds, lightning, cyclones, forest fires, terrestrial and marine heat waves, tsunamis, and landslides. Examples of slow-onset events and processes include coastal erosion, drought, salinisation, water scarcity, groundwater depletion, prolonged dry spells, nighttime temperature increase, and sea level rise.
Climate-induced loss and damage can be further categorised into economic and non-economic loss and damage. Examples of loss and damage under the economic category consist of resources, goods, services, and assets which are commonly traded in markets, while examples for non-economic loss and damage include loss of life or health, human mobility, loss of territory, cultural loss, or ecosystem and biodiversity loss.
National commitments related to loss and damage
In Sri Lanka’s updated NDCs, the country commits to several actions classified under the thematic focus of loss and damage. These commitments under the NDCs consist of conducting a gap analysis to assess the current status and understanding of loss and damage; strengthening the existing weather and climate forecasting system; improving data management systems to record losses and damages per sector; establishing an overarching, nationally appropriate, functional institutional mechanism; and developing a comprehensive risk management framework.
These commitments are aimed at ensuring a comprehensive process for addressing climate-induced loss and damage and that actions implemented under this thematic focus are based on an assessment of needs and evidence-based planning.
For example, the commitments include a gaps and needs assessment which has identified aspects such as the need for enhanced coordination; technical support to address climate-induced loss and damage; institutional capacity-building; data management needs and mechanisms; and means of implementation to implement actions focused on averting, minimising, and addressing climate-induced loss and damage.
2023 and COP28
This year marks a key moment for actions related to loss and damage. In the lead-up to the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), several key activities were conducted and continue to be conducted to ensure that sufficient funds are raised to address climate-induced loss and damage, as well as to identify the best ways for operationalising the Loss and Damage Fund established at COP27 in 2022.
It is important to identify key avenues for ensuring that those who are most vulnerable to climate change are able to access support from global funds set up for averting, minimising, and addressing climate impacts. It is also important that these processes are inclusive and participatory and respect the voices of those who are most affected by climate impacts.
Additionally, it is equally important to consider avenues for ensuring that climate justice is integrated into processes to avert, minimise, and address climate risk as well as climate-induced loss and damage.
Towards this end, comprehensive approaches for building partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and capacity-building of the most vulnerable communities will be vital and could help to scale-up action, ensure good governance in the relevant processes, and address the needs of those who are the most vulnerable to climate change.
(The writer is an Attorney-at-Law specialising in public international law. She leads the work of SLYCAN Trust, a non-profit think tank working on climate change, sustainable development, biodiversity and ecosystem conservation, social justice, and animal welfare. She has worked over a decade on climate change at local, national, and international level with a focus on climate change related law and policy, UN climate change policy and actions, UNFCCC negotiations, climate adaptation and loss and damage related action, climate-friendly entrepreneurship, multi-stakeholder engagement in policy, and climate action including youth engagement and gender)