Loss and Damage - COP29 Updates

Jeanneau, Louise. 2024. Loss and Damage - COP29 Updates. Blog post. Montpellier, France: CGIAR System Organization.

Loss and Damage (L&D) refers to the unavoidable impacts of climate change that exceed what communities can adapt to. These impacts include economic losses like damaged infrastructure and disrupted livelihoods, as well as non-economic losses, such as the loss of cultural heritage and biodiversity (UNFCCC, UNEP). L&D is a matter of climate justice and in this way, is closely related to the concept of Just Transition, as the most vulnerable countries to the adverse effects of climate change are often the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases.

The urgency of addressing Loss and Damage has grown significantly in recent COP negotiations. In 2010, COP16 formally acknowledged L&D with the creation of the SBI Work Programme on L&D. Building on this, COP19 established the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) to provide countries facing L&D with knowledge-sharing, coordination, and financial support. Four years later, at COP25, the Santiago Network was launched to catalyze action by offering the technical assistance needed for developing countries to implement L&D on the ground, at local, national, and regional levels.

A significant breakthrough came at COP28 when countries signed an historic agreement to operationalize the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) — enshrined in decisions 2/CP.27 and 2/CMA.4 — and followed it with a $420 million pledge. To advance the operations of the Fund, COP and CMA appointed Ibrahima Cheikh Diong as its first Executive Director in September 2024.

This year, the focus will shift to discussions on how to efficiently implement the L&D Fund, including setting eligibility criteria, defining disbursement procedures, and ensuring rapid access to funding — avoiding delays that have plagued other climate finance mechanisms. While $700 million was pledged since COP28, this amount is far from the $580 billion in climate-related damages that developing countries could face by 2030. At COP29, developed countries should announce new pledges to ensure that support reaches real-time needs of most vulnerable communities.

In addition, agriculture, which received only 4.3% of climate finance in 2019-2020 and has not been a central focus in L&D discussions, must be prioritized. The L&D Fund must allocate sufficient resources to strengthen food systems, given their crucial role in achieving global climate action. Equally important is the question of whether the New Quantified Goal on Adaptation will explicitly address loss and damage or include a dedicated sub-goal to this end.

COP29 negotiations as tracked, analyzed, and reported by Louise, Jeanneau