Assessing climate loss and damage in the Sundarbans: an exploration of the relevant institutions and policies in India and Bangladesh

Bose, S.; Joshi, D. 2024. Assessing climate loss and damage in the Sundarbans: an exploration of the relevant institutions and policies in India and Bangladesh. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI). CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas. 34p.

The term ‘loss and damage’ (L&D) refers to the consequences of climate change that transcend people’s ability to adapt to its impacts, either because the impact surpasses their adaptive capabilities or because available adaptation options are inaccessible due to a lack of resources in the community (Bhandari et al. 2022). A Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) was operationalized at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) in 2023. Speed and agility in supporting the affected are key to the success of the Loss and Damage fund (Ahmed et al. 2023). While global organizers focus on streamlining its operational processes, it is not clear whether recipient countries and communities are also being enabled to access, receive, and distribute these funds. How prepared, agile, accountable, and transparent are relevant institutions at the national and sub-national levels? More importantly, how will we measure and compensate loss and damage in socially, economically, and ecologically diverse communities?

To provide an initial understanding of these questions, this study seeks to assess institutional preparedness in Bangladesh and India in responding to the challenges of, and financing dealing with L&D. It assesses relevant policies and the institutional context in both these countries, including the capacities of relevant sectors—for example, finance, environment, agriculture, irrigation, fisheries, forest, education, and rural livelihoods. The geographical focus of the analysis is the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove delta, which straddles India and Bangladesh. It is an ecologically fragile area intersected by a vast network of rivers and channels. The region experiences both slow and rapid onset events (sea level rise, cyclones, floods, high tides, salinity ingress, erosion, land subsidence, and embankment breaches). The Sundarbans is a transboundary, global climate change hotspot, where an escalating climate crisis impacts not only lives and livelihoods, but also the world’s largest mangrove forests, which act as a natural barrier to increasing environmental/water hazards and sustain biodiverse habitation.

This report assesses the policy and institutional bricolage of L&D to understand how governments are aware of, and prepared for L&D and whether there are any policies of compensation for people affected by climate change. Policy and institutional analyses were undertaken at three levels: one, focusing on the global discourse related to L&D; two, an analysis of country-level specific policies and institutions in India and Bangladesh; and three, at the grassroots level in the Sundarbans regions of both these countries.