Loss and Damage
How the fight over compensation for climate-related destruction became one of the most contentious issues in international climate negotiations.
Beyond Adaptation
Loss and damage refers to the negative impacts of climate change that go beyond what communities can adapt to. When a Pacific island state loses territory to rising seas, when a Caribbean nation is flattened by a hurricane intensified by warming oceans, or when an African farmer's land becomes permanently uncultivable due to drought, these are not problems that better planning or seawalls can solve. They represent irreversible losses, both economic (destroyed infrastructure, lost livelihoods) and non-economic (cultural heritage, displacement from ancestral lands, biodiversity loss).
Developing countries have argued for decades that the nations most responsible for historical emissions should compensate those suffering the worst consequences. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) first raised the issue in 1991, proposing an insurance scheme funded by industrialized countries. For over 30 years, wealthy nations resisted, fearing that any acknowledgment of responsibility would open the door to limitless legal liability.