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Flood damage in Fiji following Cyclone Evan 2012. Photo Aus AID public domain
January 2018

Preparing for the Suva Expert Dialogue – getting Loss and Damage right

Dr Olivia Serdeczny

By now it is clear that climate change is as much an economic problem as it is an environmental one. Rising temperatures slow economic growth and devastating climate-related impacts leave large negative imprints on economic development of developing countries. Most financial instruments that have been proposed in the context of loss and damage do not solve the problems developing countries face.
A road in Dominica is littered with debris from Hurricane Maria.
November 2017

Loss and Damage at COP23 – goals, roadblocks and detours

Dr Olivia Serdeczny

COP23 was hosted by a small island state, Fiji, and vulnerable countries thought it was high time to address the issue of Loss and Damage head on. The result from the first ‘islands COP’ is that it is obvious we are not driving in the fast lane however the goals are not out of sight either.
Flooding in Bangladesh
November 2017

A year of climate extremes: a case for Loss & Damage at COP23

Bill Hare, Dr Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Dr Olivia Serdeczny, Dr Fahad Saeed

Climate extremes, many now bearing human fingerprints, are already causing devastating impacts across the globe, and the time is high for Loss and Damage to be considered in concrete and actionable terms in the implementation of the Paris Agreement. But what are the next steps to really move this issue forward, and in particular what needs to be done at the first “Islands COP” in Bonn?

Cyclone Sidr, Pixnio
May 2017

“It’s complicated” – loss and damage in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report

Dr Olivia Serdeczny

The draft outline of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report doesn’t contain an explicit reference to loss and damage but will deal with “residual risks”, “adaptation limits” and “attribution.” Should this outline be adopted at the next IPCC plenary, it would be a missed opportunity to bring the entire spectrum of loss and damage available in the scientific literature into focus and support vulnerable countries in preparing do deal with it.

Small island off the coast of Antarctica. Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
May 2017

IPCC special reports on land, oceans and ice

In addition to the sixth assessment report and the special report on 1.5°C, the IPCC has two other special reports in the works: one on how climate change impacts land and another on oceans and cryosphere. Both are of great importance to vulnerable countries, like small islands. Although there will not be an explicit reference to the issue of loss and damage, thanks to a strong push by vulnerable countries both outlines now incorporate some of its core components, like climate change attribution, residual risk and adaptation limits.