24 August 2024 : Daily Answer Writing

Q1) Describe the concept of loss and damage and evaluate its relevance in ensuring climate equity.

(250 Words/15 Marks)

ANS

“Loss and damage” can be defined as irreversible economic and non-economic costs being incurred from climate-fuelled weather extremes or impacts. COP-27 has set up a Loss and Damage Fund to deliver vital support to those devastated by the accelerating climate crisis. The term ‘loss and damage’ largely encompasses:

1. Holding the fossil fuel polluters liable for climate crisis.
2. Ensuring justice for those who suffered loss of lives or economic losses due to climate change.
3. Broadening scope of affected nations to claim compensation.

The principle of loss and damage is a vital part of climate equity, as:

1. Equity invokes corrective justice from adverse effects of global warming. E.g., loss and damage fund can aid in attaining the INDCs, restricting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.
2. It provides distributive justice among all the stakeholders. E.g., providing compensation to the most affected and yet less/least responsible countries.
3. It ensures an inclusive negotiation process by addressing disparity in carbon footprints between developed and developing countries.
4. It strives to reverse loss of natural systems by achieving a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for all.
5. It seeks to prioritize people over profit. E.g., investing in green technologies in order to ensure a circular economy.
6. It is needed for developing and underdeveloped countries to adapt to the impending food and water crisis.

Though ‘loss and damage’ is an important element of climate equity, additional measures are needed to ensure complete climate justice:

1. Climate justice accounts for the intergenerational impact of climate change. E.g., it calls to enhance carbon handprints to provide sustainable environment for future generations.
2. As the space to pollute is limited, climate justice calls for allotting maximum emission space to the developing countries with higher welfare obligations. E.g., health, education, infrastructure needs of developing countries.
3. Technology transfer is a vital element of the climate justice process. There is a need for the developed countries to transfer relevant technologies, ease IPR regimes etc., to the developing countries.
4. Climate justice seeks to safeguard the human rights of those most impacted by climate change (who are also those with minimum carbon footprints). E.g., heat waves impact construction laborers the most.
5. Climate justice addresses the new and potential challenges which are (or will be) an outcome of climate change. E.g., challenges associated with climate refugees
6. Climate justice also includes the requirement to cater to the different needs and aspirations of global actors, countries etc. E.g., Small Island Development States (SIDS) will be most impacted by sea level rise; India could be severely impacted by climate refugees; Brazil and Australia are vulnerable to incidents of forest fires.

In light of rising global temperatures, there is need to make timely transition towards clean energy. Global cooperation in climate finance is pre-requisite for effective climate action. Further, tools like climate equity monitor (CEM) and behavioral changes in developed societies disregarding toxic consumerism are needed to build a people-led framework for climate justice.