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COP28: Forging the way ahead from the Loss and Damage Fund
2023-11-30
By Professor Heiko Balzter, Director of the Institute for Environmental Futures, and COP28 attendee
As delegates gather in Dubai for COP28, academics at our unique Institute for Environmental Futures have worked together to demonstrate the distinctive interdisciplinary nature of the University’s approach to research that addresses the climate crisis.
In the paper ‘Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Knowledge Gaps and Interdisciplinary Approaches’, published in the journal Sustainability, colleagues from the Institute for Environmental Futures set out key factors that will affect – or be affected by – the United Nations’ Loss and Damage Fund, the establishment of which was ratified at COP27 in 2022.
The fund is intended to compensate low- and middle-income countries suffering negative impacts from climate change. However, its implementation requires negotiation and commitment from signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In the paper, me and my colleagues address some important knowledge gaps relating to how loss and damage can be measured, quantified, valued, understood, communicated and adapted to.
The problem of understanding the effects of climate change on humankind and, hence, identifying the best response strategies, is interdisciplinary by its very nature, argues the paper. This is because a holistic understanding of these problems can only arise from the interplay between many individual disciplines including (but certainly not limited to) geography, oceanography, biology, ecology, economics, sociology and psychology. Arguably, this is one of the most complex problems that science has ever dealt with.
Alongside my role as Institute Director, I am also a member of the National Centre for Earth Observation, which is based at the University of Leicester. Earth observation from space plays a vital role in monitoring a wide array of environmental processes and features, ranging from the size of polar ice caps and carbon stored in the world’s forests to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and ocean temperatures. Earth Observation data should form an integral part of an assessment of losses and damages because they provide impartial information.
There are humanitarian as well as scientific aspects to the climate emergency. In the Global South, climate change issues are often taking place in an environment where human rights violations are common, raising legal issues around due diligence and the implications of national climate adaptation planning policies and laws.
Social sciences, arts and humanities all offer perspectives on the consequences of loss and damage and on who could or should benefit from the Loss and Damage Fund. These perspectives include how different socio-economic and minority groups are represented in the process of quantifying and compensating for loss and damage as well as equality and gender issues. The issue of fair sharing of the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and paying for the adaptation to climate change impacts like droughts and floods is being discussed under the heading of ‘Just Transition’. It is important that the pathway towards a low emissions future does not make economic inequalities worse.
Many types of cultural and natural heritage across the globe are at risk from climate change. Different community groups may have diverging ideas of the value of different types of heritage. Cultural and social cohesion and family structures, place names, and festivals are examples of assets that are often overlooked but can be severely disrupted if people are displaced by climate change impacts such as floods or famine.
Our paper also highlights the need for clear, accessible communication beyond the academic, technical and political discourse which can be exclusionary or inaccessible. Media such as art exhibitions and public performances such as Forum Theatre can reach people who would not normally engage with the topic of climate change.
We have identified seven principles which the Loss and Damage Fund must consider in order to be impactful and effective and urge the COP28 climate conference to give due consideration to them:
- Prioritisation
- Integration
- Partnership
- Evidence-based decision-making
- Capacity building
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Long-term planning
NOTE: The paper ‘Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Knowledge Gaps and Interdisciplinary Approaches’ was co-authored by Mateus Macul, Beth Delaney, Kevin Tansey, Fernando Espirito-Santo, Chidiebere Ofoegbu, Molly Desorgher, Caroline Upton and Mick Whelan, School of Geography, Geology and the Environment; Sergei Petrovskii from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Bernhard Forchtner and Nicholes Nicholes from the School of Media Communication and Sociology; Emilio Payo and Pat Heslop-Harrison from the Department of Genetics and Genome Biology; Moya Burns from the School of Biological Sciences; Laura Basell, Ella Egberts and Emma Stockley from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History; Ayse Yildiz from the School of Business.