What is Loss and damage fund?

About Loss and damage fund

• It was first announced during COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
• It is a global financial package to ensure the rescue and rehabilitation of countries facing the cascading effects of climate change.
• The term refers to the compensation that rich nations, whose industrial growth has resulted in global warming and driven the planet into a climate crisis, must pay to poor nations, whose carbon footprint is low but are facing the brunt of rising sea levels, floods, crippling droughts, and intense cyclones, among others.
• The changing climate has impacted lives, livelihoods, biodiversity, cultural traditions, and identities.
• Loss and damage is often categorised as either economic or non-economic.
  • Economic loss and damage are negative impacts that one can assign a monetary value to. These are things such as the costs of rebuilding infrastructure that has been damaged due to a flood, or the loss of revenue from agricultural crops that were destroyed due to drought.
  • Non-economic loss and damage are negative impacts where it is difficult or infeasible to assign a monetary value.
  • These are things such as trauma from experiencing a tropical cyclone, loss of community due to displacement of people, or loss of biodiversity,”
• The World Bank will oversee the loss and damage fund in the beginning, with the source of funds being rich nations, such as the US, the UK and the EU, as well as some developing countries.

Q1) What is the COP?

The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. All States that are Parties to the Convention are represented at the COP, at which they review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.

Source: Loss and damage fund approved at COP28 summit: What is the fund, why is it required, and how will it operate?