‘Loss and damage’ stalemate has reached breaking point

‘Loss and damage’ stalemate has reached breaking point

It is often hard to predict what will happen at the huge annual UN talks that, since 1995, have been held to thrash out global climate change agreements.

But not this year. Much of the November COP27 meeting in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh will be consumed by one of the most protracted, divisive and confusing issues ever to arise in these negotiations: “loss and damage”.

With luck, the COP27 conference will finally start to resolve this festering problem. Actually, make that: with a lot of luck.

The idea of climate loss and damage first emerged more than 30 years ago in small island countries — the places where lives and livelihoods were most at risk from rising sea levels and vicious storms. In the early 1990s, these nations began to call for measures, such as an international insurancesystem or a global fund, bankrolled by richer countries, to help cover such losses.

However, the UN climate talks ended up producing two different types of funding. “Adaptation” financing was supposed to help countries adapt to the effects of climate change, by funding projects such as flood barriersor hurricane early warning systems. “Mitigation” funds were aimed at helping poorer countries decarbonise by building, say,