Could a Loss and Damage Fund Compensate Climate Migrants?

This transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies. If you notice an error, feel free to email [email protected].

 

CHAPTERS 

[00:02:32]: Economic and non-economic losses and the challenge of valuation 

[00:05:25]: Where loss and damage is already being observed globally 

[00:06:13]: When displacement is understood as a form of loss and damage 

[00:07:42]: The development of the Loss and Damage Fund 

[00:10:46]: The scale of funding relative to estimated needs 

[00:12:11]: Access challenges: how funds reach affected communities 

[00:19:18]: Possible future trajectories for climate finance and loss and damage responses

 

TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:03.09] 

Hello, my name is Julian Hattem and this is Changing Climate, Changing Migration coming to you from the Migration Policy Institute. This is a podcast exploring the different ways that climate change is forcing and changing migration. Over the last couple of years, I've been hearing a lot of uses of the phrase loss and damage. The last two years, the annual UN climate change conferences known as the COP meetings have taken steps toward creating something called a loss and damage fund that could have some major impacts on climate related migration and displacement. But it's a bit of a vague phrase. What exactly is being lost and what's being damaged? To help me wrap my head around this issue, I'm speaking today with Adelle Thomas. Adelle is a senior scientist and the Loss and Damage Lead at the organization Climate Analytics. And she is the perfect person to help make sense of this for all of us. Adelle, thank you so much for your time. It's great to have you on.

 

 

 

[00:01:05.20] 

Thanks for having me.

 

 

 

[00:01:07.12] 

So I've been hearing these words loss and damage a lot lately, especially during the annual COP summits where governments from around the world come together to discuss climate challenges. There's a lot of talk about a loss and damage fund, which I've also heard referred to as climate reparations. I guess. What exactly is loss and damage in the climate change context?

 

 

 

[00:01:27.14] 

Yeah, so that's a great question and one that we are still struggling with somewhat. There is no agreed upon definition of loss and damage, but what it generally refers to are the negative impacts of climate change. So these are, you know, bad things that happen after climate, some type of climate change has occurred.

 

 

 

[00:01:46.21] 

And is there also an element too of recognizing that the people to whom these bad things tend to happen historically are not the ones that have been responsible for the major climate change emissions and greenhouse gas emissions?

 

 

 

[00:01:59.21] 

Yeah, so when you get further into loss and damage, so at the main level, you know, loss and damage, negative impacts of climate change. When you start digging deeper into why loss and damage has been such a contentious subject, it's that the people that are affected the most by loss and damage are those that have generally contributed the least to global emissions that actually cause loss and damage. So then this is where issues around climate justice come in, where it's vulnerable populations that are experiencing the worst impacts.

 

 

 

[00:02:30.08] 

And it seems to me that we're talking here about both economic losses in terms of things like destroyed crops or flooded houses. And you know, these kinds of things seem like they can be somewhat easily quantifiable and measurable. But then there are also non economic losses like, you know, the harm that's done to a tradition if a culturally important plant or area is no longer accessible, or how communities are disrupted when people are displaced and move away from each other. I guess. Is that a fair way to think about this universe? And if so, those non economic losses and damages seem a lot more harder to, to wrap your hands around. Right? I guess. Can you make sense of those distinctions?

 

 

 

[00:03:11.10] 

Yeah, absolutely. So one way to try and categorize loss and damage is exactly as economic or as non economic. And as you say, quantifying economic loss and damage is much simpler than quantifying non economic loss and damage. So economic loss and damage we can put a number to. So you can say this hurricane cost $5 billion of damages to infrastructure. And that's something that people can generally understand. But for non economic loss and damage, it's those intangible things that are so hard number one to even quantify, but number two to even try to put a value on, a monetary value on, which makes it very difficult. And that's things like loss of life, it's things like changes to biodiversity, loss of biodiversity. How do you quantify the extinction of an animal? Ecosystem services. How do you quantify the value? If a coral reef is completely harmed and it can no longer offer protection to a coastline, how do you quantify that? So it becomes really difficult to try and put a handle on those non economic loss and damage.

 

 

 

[00:04:16.10] 

So how do you do it then? I guess is there some sort of metric to say, okay, this coral reef is gone and we're projecting in the next 10 years that we'll have XYZ damage? I mean how, yeah, how do you try and quantify or at least calculate or make sense of those non economic losses?

 

 

 

[00:04:33.10] 

Yeah, so that's currently like a main area where research is needed to try and non economic loss and damage is so vast. Right. So it's everything from health to I guess as we'll talk in a bit, talking about human mobility, social identity, cultural attachments to places. It's a huge, huge area and it's one that unfortunately we are having to deal with much earlier than we expected. Because loss and damage is happening now on such a scale that we didn't expect. So we need these methodologies and these research to come out now.

 

 

 

[00:05:11.12] 

Yeah, so say more about that, I guess. What types of communities, what types of people are facing loss and loss, losses and damages now and how might those change in the future? Particularly if, you know, global efforts to meet our climate targets are not successful?

 

 

 

[00:05:24.23] 

Yeah, so we're seeing loss and damage being experienced pretty much everywhere now, unfortunately, in rich countries, in poorer countries, but within those countries, particularly amongst vulnerable groups, those low socioeconomic class, women and children, migrant communities, the forest fires that we've seen in Canada and the us, the flooding that we've seen in Germany, the catastrophic hurricanes that we see in the Caribbean, you know, famine that we're seeing in some places, all of this, you know, climate change has its fingerprint on it and it's loss and damage. So unfortunately, it's like a global epidemic of loss and damage that is happening now.

 

 

 

[00:06:11.14] 

Let's bring this back. You mentioned mobility patterns. I guess is it fair to think of changing mobility and displacement as one subtype of loss and damage? What is the migration or mobility connection here?

 

 

 

[00:06:23.16] 

Absolutely. I think it depends on who you ask. For some people, they see mobility as an adaptation measure. It's something that you can do in advance of climate change happening. You can say, this place is not safe and we're going to move everyone. That would be adaptation. But for many communities and for many countries, they see mobility as a form of loss and damage. It's not something that they want to do. It's because of climate change impacts, because of these negative impacts that they are then forced to have to move. So forced into being displaced after a storm or forced to have to move because the place is no longer habitable. So from that perspective, loss and damage is absolute. I mean, mobility is absolutely seen as a form of loss and damage.

 

 

 

[00:07:11.19] 

Mm. So let's get back to this fund, then, that I've heard talked about at these COP summits every year or so. As it relates to migration, at least, is the idea there that offering some amount of money to people in climate vulnerable areas might prevent that displacement and might help them stay in place rather than being forced to move? Or what is the. I guess, how does migration and displacement and mobility fit into the notion of the Loss and Damage Fund?

 

 

 

[00:07:36.16] 

Yeah, so the Loss and Damage Fund is actually a huge deal. After decades of advocacy from developing countries, there was finally agreement to establish this fund. And the fund is so historic because it's focusing on actually addressing loss and damage. So after negative impacts occur, then there's support for countries and communities to be able to respond to those negative impacts. So as it relates to mobility, it wouldn't be in advance of something happening. We help people to not have to move. It would be after something happens, then we help people that may have been affected by that. So it may be helping displaced populations, you know, wherever they are, it may be helping to return them home. So the differentiation between adaptation and loss of damage as it comes to mobility is it happens after the event.

 

 

 

[00:08:31.16] 

And more generally speaking, the fund is, I guess. Yeah. To help people recover from these catastrophic or. Yeah. Various types of losses and damages, whether it's being forced to move or your house is flooded or burned in a wildfire or whatever. And it's offering basically a cash payment, is the idea. Or how does that work? Or how might it work? It's all speculative, right?

 

 

 

[00:08:51.17] 

Yeah, it's all speculative now. So things are happening very rapidly. The fund, you know, historically was agreed upon at COP27 in 2022 and then just last year, December in 2023, you know, some of the further were agreed upon in terms of who would host the fund. So the World's bank will host the fund and also in terms of who would contribute to the fund. And that was like a major sticking point which countries are going to have to put into the fund. And this is where it circles back to that climate justice. So should it be countries that are most responsible for climate change or should it be everyone? At the end of the day, everyone is encouraged to contribute to the fund. There wasn't any, you know, metrics put on there as to how much money would go into the fund. Yeah. So in one way it was a win that we have a fund established, but on the other hand, there's still a long way to actually get that fund up and running and have money at the scale that's needed to respond to loss and damage.

 

 

 

[00:09:59.07] 

And how big, I mean, what could that fund look like? Or how big should it be? How big could it be? Who are the major donors and who decides how the money is dispersed? I mean, tell me about some of the. The logistics again, keeping in mind that I think, as I understand a lot of this is still TBD.

 

 

 

[00:10:17.13] 

Yeah. So the logistics are still to be determined. The board of the fund has just now been established and that board is tasked with figuring out access modalities. So who is eligible to access, how you can access, how money will be distributed, and for what. So all of that is still to come. What has happened so far is that countries have made pledges towards the fund and they did this at COP28 last year. And so far the pledges are amounting to around US$700 million, which sounds like a lot, but it's not the low ball. Estimates of the cost of loss and damage on an annual basis are around $150 billion. And that's a low ball. So we are way off in the scale of finance that's in there. The major donors have come from both developed and developing countries. A lot of the European countries put in big money. The US unfortunately only put in 17 million. But hopefully we will see the, the scale of these, of these pledges and

 

 

 

[00:11:22.01] 

funds go up and in. I guess in practice, what could this look like? Again, keeping in mind that a lot of the logistics are not hammered out, but let's say I am a resident of a small, low lying Pacific island threatened by sea level rise and these other things I happen to be place is the idea that, okay, I might be able to like apply for a grant from this World bank fund. I write out my reasons for why I need this grant and then they say, okay, here's X thousand dollars or whatever to build a seawall to help you return and stay in place. Is that in practice what it might look like or guess how, yeah, walk me through like a hypothetical individual, like how this looks like for an actual person.

 

 

 

[00:12:05.01] 

Theoretically for an actual person. And this is, this is great. And this is what has to be hammered out. It's how are you going to access the funds? How are we going to be sure that money that's coming from this big fund is actually making it to the people that are most affected and need it? So one of the modalities that civil society has been pushing forward the fund is to make sure that community based organizations can actually apply to the fund and get help that it doesn't have to come from, you know, from the government or from these other agencies that then a very small percentage actually makes it down to people on the ground. So it's, there is great expectation that communities will be able to go directly to the fund to get money to help them to recover from negative impacts. Whether that looks like, you know, building a sea wall or whether that looks like being able to rebuild their homes, it depends. And again this is like the gray area between adaptation and loss and damage. Sea walls or depth is, you know, normally considered an adaptation measure. Rebuilding your house is recovery from loss and damage.

 

 

 

[00:13:14.21] 

But clearly when you rebuild, you want to rebuild in a way that makes you less vulnerable to loss and damage happening in the future.

 

 

 

[00:13:21.06] 

Yeah.

 

 

 

[00:13:21.22] 

So there's going to be, you know, some sticky points in there.

 

 

 

[00:13:25.14] 

I mean, I guess it makes me wonder like it's probably cheaper to prevent the disaster from happening in the first place rather than like coming in afterwards and doing mop up duty. Right? Like absolutely, yeah. Why not Fund, why is this not an adaptation Fund instead of a after the fact loss and damage fund.

 

 

 

[00:13:42.11] 

Well, why is it not a mitigation? Or could it be. Yeah, mitigation fund so that we could have these climate impacts in the first. But the fact is that we are now at a point that mitigation funding is not enough, adaptation funding is not enough. We are now experiencing the impacts of climate change and they have to be responded to. So we need a loss and damage fund, but we need more funding for everything. Basically, we've gotten to the point where everything is now happening and it has to happen all at once.

 

 

 

[00:14:11.19] 

Yeah, everything is happening and it has to happen all at once. Yeah, Lovely and terrifying idea. But let's get talk, let's go back to the funding a little bit. I mean, because. So it's all voluntary now, right? Which countries pay what? I mean, is there, and is there some effort to change that and make it mandatory or impose like limit threshold limits on who contributes? What. And obviously I'm sure that would be politically controversial, especially for big countries like the United States, Western Europe. Yeah, yeah.

 

 

 

[00:14:41.13] 

So that was actually a main issue that was holding back the development of any type of fund is that developed countries that have contributed the most did not want to be liable or responsible for loss and damage. And so in all of the negotiations leading up to the operationalization of the funds, it was around who is going to contribute. And developing countries did not want to be listed as having to contribute because they're like, we didn't cause this and now you're asking us to pay for it. So in the end, it is very political. And the only way that all of the countries agreed to it was that there would be voluntary contributions. And so now I guess, you know, it's, it's up to people to lobby their governments to actually contribute because otherwise it's just going to be voluntary. This is what I feel like contributing. And as we've seen, it's not anywhere near enough.

 

 

 

[00:15:39.08] 

And it's all governments at this point that are contributing. Right. It's not like some, some billionaire has donated half of their wealth, you know, Jeff Bezos or Warren Buffett, whatever.

 

 

 

[00:15:47.08] 

Yes, yeah. At this point it's just governments, but the fund is open to contributions from other sources. So it could be philanthropies that want to donate, it could be taxes on particular industries and it could go towards the fund. So it's made deliberately, very open so that as much money as possible can go into the fund and then make it hopefully directly to people that are impacted.

 

 

 

[00:16:11.02] 

Every time there's lots of money involved, which, even if it's not as much money as there should be, or people would like there to be several hundred million dollars, just a lot of money. There's also prime opportunity for controversy, for corruption, for grifting, I guess. How, how does one account for that? Is it just kind of placing faith in the World bank or how do you accommodate those kinds of concerns?

 

 

 

[00:16:34.01] 

Yeah, so there will be checks and balances with all of these big climate funds. There are always checks and balances both in how the money is distributed and then how it's used. It makes it quite onerous for many developing countries to actually access funds. So the green climate funds, you know, historically very difficult for small countries to access given, you know, the requirements that are there. So there's again, expectations that the loss and damage fund will be different in that there are checks and balances to make sure that, you know, things are above board, but at the same way, making it available so that like a community based organization can say, hey, we have a whole bunch of people that don't have anywhere to live. We need help.

 

 

 

[00:17:17.14] 

Yeah. Because those people, those organizations are closer to the ground. They know, they're more in touch. But it's also, if you're a community based organization in Papua New guinea or, you know, small island, it's hard to access this huge organization.

 

 

 

[00:17:30.11] 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

 

 

[00:17:31.22] 

So how far are we from this community based organization in, you know, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Bangladesh, whatever, being able to apply for a fund for, to, for money to rebuild a house?

 

 

 

[00:17:43.14] 

Yeah, yeah.

 

 

 

[00:17:44.16] 

At what stage are we. And at what stage does this, Are there material gains and benefits? Does it pay out?

 

 

 

[00:17:50.24] 

Yeah. So again, just in December, I know just in December, there was agreements to have the World bank to host it. There was agreement to have a board of the fund established. And then that board is tasked with hammering out these details. The board was supposed to be established and they were supposed to have met by the end of January of this year. They have not met as yet.

 

 

 

[00:18:15.17] 

Yeah. And we're recording this in late November or late February.

 

 

 

[00:18:19.06] 

Yeah, yeah. So like the pressure is on for them to meet and to hammer at these details and to have everything solidified by the next COP, which is coming up at the end of 2024. And then hopefully very soon after that there will be, you know, the ability for people to directly access the fund.

 

 

 

[00:18:37.14] 

Okay, so that's not that long. I mean, theoretically in the next, like year or two or three, money could be paid out. Theoretically.

 

 

 

[00:18:44.03] 

Theoretically. Which may seem like it's not that long. But to people that are suffering and for people that have been advocating for decades, it's like, come on, we need to get going.

 

 

 

[00:18:54.21] 

If your house was destroyed, like two or three or four years without a house. Yeah, that's a big problem.

 

 

 

[00:18:59.22] 

Yeah.

 

 

 

[00:19:00.21] 

So give me. Let's look forward then. So it's 2024, in 2034, in 2044, I guess what is the optimistic vision of what this loss and damage fund could be? And I guess what are you afraid of? What is the pessimistic version of that image?

 

 

 

[00:19:17.16] 

To me, I think the optimistic would be that the fund is fully operational, that communities are able to access, but critically that there's not a need to be going over like that. The need won't continually be escalating. Right. And that's linked to global warming and that's linked to mitigation and that's linked to limiting warming to 1.5, which we are nowhere near doing.

 

 

 

[00:19:46.01] 

Which is 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre industrial averages.

 

 

 

[00:19:49.08] 

Correct. Right. So it comes back to we need to do much better at getting rid of our emissions, limiting climate change so that we do not have these ever escalating impacts of climate change. Ever escalating loss and damage and cost of loss and damage. Worst case scenario, we keep emitting like we're doing and the need for loss and damage fund escalates, but there's no money in it. We keep seeing unequal and unjust impacts of climate change being borne by those that have contributed the least and we spiral down into an ever unjust society.

 

 

 

[00:20:27.21] 

I don't want to leave us there. Let's go back to the nice vision. Yeah, I mean, so also like how big. We're almost at the end of our time, but I guess how big of a pot of money could this be? Should this be? And I mean, yeah, I guess. What's your optimistic vision for the size and how much and how that gets distributed? And I guess also is it like, I mean, would applicants in the US and Germany and Canada, whatever, also be eligible to apply theoretically? I mean, who is the notion that it would be both big enough to accommodate everyone and that applicants could be everyone, regardless of their country?

 

 

 

[00:21:03.20] 

I think within the UNFCCC, which is where the fund sits, the focus is very much on providing support to developing countries and that developed countries are able to take care of their own, which I would hope that that is true, that developed countries are able to take care of their own. In terms of the scale of funding, I think we need to learn from past efforts to try and put out this big political number, and we actually need to respond to actual costs. So as we have, you know, better pictures of what it's actually costing, then we're able to respond. And we're not aiming for, like, some number that may change as impacts get worse or as they decline. So I think we learned from the past. We respond to what's actually happening in a way that is. That is responsive to what developing countries and communities are asking for.

 

 

 

[00:21:59.06] 

Because you note that this is not the first. I mean, it's the first fund specifically of its kind. But there are similar-ish funds of similar kinds before. Right. And the main lessons are there of what run me through the main lessons from those.

 

 

 

[00:22:12.00] 

The main lessons are you need to cut down on the bureaucracy so that people can actually access the funds. You need to have sustained financing. So if countries make a pledge, they actually need to commit and actually give the money and that, you know, these funds, the scale of finance needs to be responsive to what the actual costs are. So, for instance, there was the whole $100 billion per year goal that has still not been met. That has been found to be woefully inadequate. But it was a big political statement. $100 billion a year sounds a nice round number. It's very nice, but it's not actually reflective of what's needed. And it was. It was not actually met.

 

 

 

[00:22:55.04] 

Yeah. And then I guess there's a. When you don't meet it and things don't look. And then there's kind of a downward spiral or pessimistic version that happens when you don't need it and everyone says, ah, well, what's the use?

 

 

 

[00:23:05.02] 

Yeah, exactly.

 

 

 

[00:23:06.19] 

Knowing that this process has been going on for decades, how do you feel at this moment? Do you feel optimistic that, like, okay, we're finally getting someplace, or do you feel like, oh, it's been decades. How could we're. How is it not done yet?

 

 

 

[00:23:19.18] 

Yeah, I feel optimistic. I mean, it's taken decades to get here. But, you know, even five years ago, if you would have said that there would be a loss and damage fund, people would have laughed. Right. So it's been like a step change that has taken decades to get that. But I'm happy that there's now that change. People know about loss and damage. For so long, people had no idea what loss and damage was, and now we're talking about it on this podcast. Right. So the awareness has increased. And I think once you start getting that awareness, then you can have action and support behind it. So I'm feeling optimistic.

 

 

 

[00:23:54.24] 

That's a lovely note that we'll probably end on, so I think we're out of time, but this was super helpful. Adelle, thank you so much for your time. I learned a lot today and I'm sure our listeners did as well.

 

 

 

[00:24:04.16] 

Yeah, thanks Julian. Thanks for having me.

 

 

 

[00:24:06.20] 

Adelle Thomas is a senior scientist and the Loss and Damage Lead at Climate Analytics. She was also the lead author on some reports about climate impacts and adaptation from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also known as the IPCC, and she's a member of MPI's Climate Advisory Board. If you want to keep up with her, you should do so. She's on X/Twitter @Adelle_SIDS.

 

 

 

[00:24:36.11] 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration. Subscribe to the podcast to catch all our new episodes right when they come out. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and all the other major podcast platforms. Take a dip into our archives at migrationpolicy.org/podcasts. If you enjoyed hearing from Adelle today, I bet you'll appreciate previous episodes about global governance of climate migration, the problems facing trapped populations who are unable to migrate away from disaster, and anticipatory action approaches to offering aid before the disaster strikes. While you're on our site, make sure to check out the Migration Information Source. That's our online magazine, which I edit and which has a special collection of articles about climate migration. You can find those at migrationpolicy.org/climate and subscribe to our bimonthly Migration Information Source newsletter to get free must read analysis about migration and human mobility all over the planet. This episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration was produced by Daniella Espacio. Assistance came from Lisa Dixon and Michelle Mittelstadt. Our theme music is Touch by Patrick Patrikios. Once again, my name is Julian Hattem. Thank you for listening.