The latest round of UN climate talks has ended up without a clear direction on how climate adaptation measures will be funded in vulnerable countries such as Bangladesh, putting the discussion on hold until next year’s climate summit.
The parties attending the COP23 in Germany expressed the need for another year to finalize the guidelines for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement by 2020. This followed a rejection by the developed countries of a demand for finance to cover climate change-induced Loss and Damage in vulnerable developing countries.
However, the UNFCCC finally integrated ‘Loss and Damage’ in its current agenda, considered as a third plank in the worldwide effort to combat climate change, along with mitigation and adaptation. The emergence of ‘Loss and Damage’ is caused by the realization that existing mitigation commitments and actions won’t prevent dangerous climate change-related impacts.
Vulnerable countries, like Small Island Developing States, already experience loss and damage and the scope will increase over the next years.
The COP23, the first “Island COP” with Fiji as a presidency, provided a unique opportunity for Small Island Developing States and other vulnerable developing countries to raise awareness for their climate change-related challenges, and to bring their concerns into the center of the negotiations.
Within UNFCCC, the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for ‘Loss and Damage’ in 2013, got embedded institutionally within the international climate regime – to expand the understanding of climate consequences and to find an appropriate mix of tools to address ‘Loss and Damage’.
However, ‘Loss and Damage’ is a multifaceted concept for the vulnerable countries, especially those disproportionally affected by climate change, have highlighted the need for compensatory measures.
In contrast, developed countries have sought to limit discussion of liability and compensation, framing loss and damage as a matter of adaptation. They aren’t allowing UN climate talks to make any progress on the issue of climate finance.
During the negotiations, developed countries like the US, Australia, and Canada, as well as the EU, delayed the inclusion of finance in the commitments on loss and damage.
There is no estimate of how much money is needed by countries suffering climate change-induced loss and damage now and in the future. Countries at the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, for example, agreed to create the Green Climate Fund to provide at least $10 billion a year to help poor and developing countries adapt to the unavoidable future impacts of climate change.
Under the Paris Agreement, this figure is supposed to ramp up to $100 billion by 2020. But as of mid-2017, the fund had raised an anemic total of $10.3 billion, while the bulk of the money countries have pledged so far has yet to be paid.
“Developed countries can’t keep putting off the issue. It must feature in the global stock take of steps being taken by governments around the world to combat climate change.” Sandeep Chamling Rai, senior adviser for global adaptation policy, WWF International.
At the COP23, another major global initiative launched to provide insurance to 400 million poor and vulnerable people around the world by 2020. The project, called the InsuResilience Global Partnership, aims to provide insurance against the damage increasingly being caused by global warming.
This scheme for the Insurance Solutions brought together signatories and aspiring members in a joint effort to lay the foundation for effective collaboration in the field of financial protection against climate change.
It might create a new pathway for negotiation where preparation for climate insurance is challenging for the vulnerable countries. However, international NGO ActionAid said that insurance is not a safety net for all.
“Insurance might turn out to be a piece of the puzzle, but we can’t pretend that it’s a safety net for everyone,” said Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for ActionAid International.
Still, it is an important question, who will bear the costs of insurance premiums for the various global initiatives. Should the poor people in vulnerable countries, need to pay for climate insurance?
In conclusion, it is hard to say that the insurance initiatives for vulnerable to climate change impacts are on the right pathway. It is yet to address the requirements to do to account for the loss and damage suffered by communities.
Within UNFCCC, Warsaw International Mechanism is preparing a report on this, but it is not scheduled for completion until June 2019. Meanwhile, such a report is being prepared by COP23 delegates, mainly from the United States and Australia to block all discussions on finances around loss and damage.
Nevertheless, it has pointed out that, the insurance policies overlooked the climate impacts that are relatively slow, such as drought, sea level rise and ocean acidification, which are the severe climate change impact faced by the Pacific region.
Now, it is a challenge for the vulnerable countries to develop their working mechanisms to satisfy Warsaw International Mechanism to step forward the progress on finance.
About the Author:
Zulker Naeen is a Climate Tracker. He is also a communication graduate of University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).
E-mail: naeenzulker@gmail.com