This blog post is part of the series What to Read. 

Have you heard about Loss and Damage (L&D)? I must admit very humbly that I did not fully grasp the ins and outs of the concept before I was asked to write this digest. If, like me, your interests lie primarily in land governance, you might very well be unfamiliar or only vaguely familiar with this notion.

But I am sure you have heard of the Pacific Islands at risk of being engulfed by rising sea levels, of melting ice in the Arctic that hinders hunting by Indigenous populations, of intense droughts in the Horn of Africa leading to increased desertification and agricultural collapse, or of forest wildfires destroying biodiversity and sacred sites, like the 2019 fires in the Amazon.

That is precisely what the concept of Loss and Damage encapsulates: climate change impacts are causing widespread disruptions now, not in a distant future, and disproportionately affect developing countries. Communities affected the most severely experience climate change as an existential threat. For them, Loss and Damage is a matter of environmental justice, a call for redress and support from industrialized countries that have contributed the most to carbon emissions.

It can be challenging to keep up with the soaring number of publications on L&D, with a multitude of academics and NGOs offering their take on the concept to influence policy debates. I have combed more than 40 publications and selected three recent open-access articles to help you navigate the literature. The first article spells out the genealogy and the politics of operationalizing L&D, taking stock of three decades of negotiations to assess where we stand today. The second paper provides a panorama of the present state of knowledge on non-economic loss and damage (NELD) incurred by Indigenous Peoples. The third article zooms in on a particular aspect of NELD and reviews the mental health consequences of the climate crisis on Indigenous Peoples. This digest also features one short video and a podcast.

Before we delve into the curated content, I offer an overview of the concept of L&D. I hope you learn as much as I did!

Conceptual Clarifications

The concept of Loss and Damage encompasses both climate change impacts and policy interventions to address these impacts, most notably under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is commonly referred to as the third pillar of climate action.

The first pillar is mitigation, which consists of avoiding or reducing greenhouse gas emissions to cap global warming below a certain level deemed “safe.” Mitigation aims at tackling the root causes of climate change to limit its extent.

Adaptation, the second pillar, is a response to inefficient or insufficient mitigation. It involves adjusting practices or adopting new ones to cope with unavoidable risks posed by climate change.

Loss and Damage as a policy response is meant to support communities that suffer from harm inflicted by climate change. In this sense, it can be viewed as a "last resort" approach within the broader landscape of climate interventions, acknowledging that climate change is already affecting millions of people and will only worsen in the future.  

Loss and Damage also refer to adverse impacts of climate change, which can take the form of “slow onset events” (such as ocean acidification or desertification) and “extreme weather events” (such as droughts or cyclones). Scientists sometimes use the term “residual impacts” to describe Loss and Damage, meaning they are impacts which people have been unable to avert through mitigation and to which they cannot adapt.

Loss and damage are often categorized into two types:     
Economic losses and damages are measurable impacts linked to diminished incomes, disruption of business operations, and destruction of infrastructure. It is estimated that, between 1980 and 2019, vulnerable economies have lost US$ 525 billion in aggregate terms as a result of climate change. 

Non-economic losses and damages (NELD) include loss of cultural heritage, biodiversity, territory, or human lives. Although they may appear less tangible and harder to quantify, they are no less detrimental.

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Loss and Damage, Climate Victims, and International Climate Law: Looking Back, Looking Forward

By Patrick Toussaint, 2024      
 

This article provides a helpful account of the evolution of L&D, tracing back its origins to proposals by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) when states negotiated the creation of the UNFCCC in 1991. The author recaps major milestones, such as the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) in 2013 or the inclusion of the concept of loss and damage in the Paris Agreement ratified in 2015. In 2019, at COP25, the Santiago Network was also created to deliver technical assistance. Finally, a pivotal moment was achieved at COP27 in November 2022 when parties agreed to establish an L&D fund, at last.

While the paper addresses technicalities, it is not merely descriptive. Instead, the author offers six reflections to assess the current state of affairs and chart the way forward. One theme that caught my attention is how losses and damages are not solely the direct outcome of climatic disruptions but are embedded in broader political contexts, colonial legacies and global patterns of inequalities. Losses and damages are often amplified by existing vulnerabilities, and further reduce the ability of people to cope with, and recover from, future hazards. For many Indigenous Peoples, carbon trading and offset are false solutions that represent a form of colonialism in disguise.

Another related theme is how key demands for climate justice have been gradually diluted, most notably due to the obstruction of major polluters who refuse to assume historical responsibility. To make progress on L&D funding, developing countries had to tone down their demands. For instance, although the Paris Agreement endorses the UN principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities,” it also includes a caveat that emitters cannot be held liable and forced to compensate victims. While reparative justice remains central for vulnerable countries, international agreements tend to frame L&D as a matter of voluntary benevolence. As the COP 29 that just wrapped up reminds us, industrialized countries continue only grudgingly to commit finance to address climate impacts.

Read the full publication

Climate-driven losses to knowledge systems and cultural heritage: A literature review exploring the impacts on Indigenous and local cultures

By Jasmine Pearson, Guy Jackson and Karen E McNamara, 2021     

This article reviews the literature on non-economic losses to Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) and cultural heritage induced by climate disruptions. The authors define ILK as systems of knowledge and beliefs about the relationships that living beings maintain with one another and with the natural environment. Cultural heritage encompasses physical objects, buildings, and sites, as well as intangible values, traditions, and practices passed down from previous generations. The authors specify that they conceptualize ILK as all knowledge developed by local people, whether or not they are indigenous.

The article identifies recurrent themes and blind spots in 100 publications. Sometimes, I found the themes were a little blurred and not clearly defined in relation to ILK and cultural heritage, but this might reflect the fact that losses are often deeply interlinked, affecting several aspects of life simultaneously.

Losses imposed on the physical cultural heritage have received the most attention in the reviewed publications (39 records). Many archeological sites, notably those in coastal areas, risk being permanently lost due to a mixture of climate change and other anthropogenic pressures such as mining. The built environment is also under severe threat across the world, with several iconic sites like Venice at risk of disappearing as a result of sea-level rise.

The authors have identified Indigenous socioecological systems as another recurrent theme in the curated body of work (29 publications) but do not specify whether they are a form of ILK or cultural heritage. These systems reflect the spiritual interactions between humans and nature. Climate change often severs these relationships and jeopardizes ontological worldviews based on people’s connection to their surrounding environment. The losses are particularly high in arctic regions.

The loss of intangible cultural heritage also features frequently in the literature (21 publications). This includes the inability to continue practicing livelihoods, performing songs, organizing ceremonial gatherings, crafting artisanal products, etc., thus disrupting identities and senses of place. This sort of ecological grief can occur both when people are displaced or when their natural environment is no longer recognizable.

The fourth theme is the erosion of ILK (addressed in 20 publications). Diminishing capacity to forecast weather using indicators like cloud formation and wind directions impacts hunting and farming activities. Another dimension is the loss of medicinal plants and associated sacred knowledge. The inability to access resources impairs traditions.

In their conclusion, the authors call for more research that amplifies the perspectives of local and Indigenous communities in the Global South, as they have garnered less scrutiny.    

Read the full publication

Indigenous mental health in a changing climate: a systematic scoping review of the global literature

By Jacqueline Middleton, Ashlee Cunsolo, Andria Jones-Bitton, Carlee J Wright, and Sherilee L Harper, 2020

I was intrigued by this paper, given its focus on climate-induced mental health issues. But when we read the evidence examined, it becomes obvious that climate hazards not only exacerbate existing mental health challenges but also create new ones. Indigenous Peoples can be particularly affected due to their heavy reliance on the environment for subsistence, identity, and spirituality.

Again, the majority of the assessed research on climatic stressors was conducted in industrialized countries, most notably Canada. The review did not include any studies on Latin America and only one African country (Tanzania). With this caveat in mind, the authors find that mental health repercussions were broadly similar across regions despite varied interpretations of mental well-being within Indigenous communities.

Many publications established a link between, on the one hand, climatic stressors such as changes in temperatures, precipitation levels, or sea ice cover and, on the other hand, feelings of helplessness, suicide or self-harm, substance abuse, and strains on social relationships, among others. Acute and extreme weather events lead to different outcomes than “chronic” climatic change.

Food insecurity as a result of poor harvests and loss of livestock or wildlife represents an indirect pathway between climate change and mental health. Forced migration due to droughts, rising sea levels, or environmental degradation also causes negative mental health impacts. The authors briefly allude to the concept of solastalgia, which was developed to express the feeling of homesickness when one’s natural surroundings no longer look familiar. Very few studies reported positive outcomes, although it was noted that, in some cases, enhanced community cohesion, compassion, and resilience ensued from climate change exposure.

The authors invite additional population-level and longitudinal studies to better understand and monitor the differentiated mental health repercussions of climate change on Indigenous Peoples. 

Read the full publication

What to Watch and Listen to:

Why Should You Care About Loss and Damage?

By the United Nations, 2024

This UN video is short but powerful. It provides an overview of the motivations for establishing the L&D fund, explains why its creation is a landmark achievement and engages with unresolved ethical dilemmas around the responsibility of emitter countries. “We cannot have a world which survives if the rich and the poor do not come together,” says evocatively Sunita Narain, Director General of the Centre for Science and Development, to conclude the video.

Development Futures: A climate loss and damage fund that works

By Alexandre Dayant, Melanie Pill, and Georgia Hammersley, 2024

In this Lowy Institute podcast animated by Alexandre Dayant, experts Dr Melanie Pill and Georgia Hammersley discuss the nitty-gritty of money allocation now that the UN Fund for responding to Loss and Damage has been created. They explore potential eligibility criteria and funding approaches, the inherent difficulties of assigning monetary value to NELD, and the urgency of securing additional resources to address soaring L&D needs—and not simply repackage existing aid as climate finance. They propose various solutions to raise funds, such as imposing a levy on airplane tickets.

This digest was produced as a companion to a Land Dialogue on Loss and Damage. Register for the webinar here.

About 'What to Read'

What to Read is a periodic blog in which Land Portal researchers share their reading list and tell you why the selected pieces stand out in a sea of information. It is a reflection on some of the most important new articles and reports that aims to identify the most current points of discussion around land and related issues, distill key messages and points of debate, and offer you an entry point to learn more. Sign up to receive the What to Read digest.