Assessing and managing loss and damage: Local-level evidence to inform global-level action in Zambia

The funding for the project is part of a proposed three-year Danish contribution to support UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC) located in the UN City Copenhagen on the topic of Assessing and managing loss and damage: Local-level evidence to inform global-level action.

The impacts of climate change that are not avoided through adaptation are referred to as loss and damage.  Loss and damage that can be repaired (for example, reduced agricultural outputs) is often referred to as economic loss and damage, and its magnitude can be monetized.  Conversely, loss and damage that results in irreparable consequences (for example, the extinction of a species) is referred to as non-economic loss and damage, and its significance is best measured qualitatively.

The costs of economic loss and damage have been estimated at several hundred billion US dollars per annum.  Although these estimates have been cited as being comprehensive across world regions and hazards, they are not, due to both data gaps and uncertainties about future climate change impacts.  Thus, such estimates are of limited use in global-level debates, beyond raising awareness about the large costs associated with economic loss and damage.  Not least, estimates of the cost of damages are close to meaningless when they lack information about the adaptation levels assumed in each world region and for each hazard.  In light of these shortcomings, comprehensive local-level estimates, expressed as a function of varying degrees of adaptation, can be comparatively more useful to understand the economics of climate change-driven economic loss and damage.

A similar case can be made for climate change-driven non-economic loss and damage.  What constitutes non-economic loss and damage varies across communities and, in some instances, across individuals.  For this reason, a meaningful assessment of non-economic loss and damage must draw on community-level evidence about who experiences loss and damage, and under what conditions.  Such evidence can also shed light on the types of non-economic loss and damage that can be prevented or delayed, and the actions required to do so.

In short, although a global-level assessment of losses and damages remains elusive, local-level assessments can be most useful alternatives.  First, local-level assessments can be analytically more robust, not least with regard to cost estimates.  Second, comparative local-level assessments can shed light on major non-financial barriers to responding to loss and damage, notably limited institutional capacities.