In climate policy, loss and damage refers broadly to the adverse impacts of climate change on the natural environment that cannot be minimised through climate adaptation (such as building sea walls to prevent flooding) or mitigation (such as reducing global greenhouse gas emissions). These impacts are already being felt acutely by climate-vulnerable developing countries, especially so in small island developing states such as Pacific Island Countries. Although, there is no internationally agreed definition, a 2023 analysis found that, between 2000 and 2019, the world (unevenly) experienced at least USD2.8 trillion in loss and damage from climate change. Consequently, loss and damage appraisal is closely linked to climate injustice and inequalities as the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are often the lowest emitters of greenhouse gases. This raises contentious questions about the responsibility for causing and paying for loss and damage, but also about how loss and damage features in the work of operational development and humanitarian actors in climate-vulnerable states.
Our new report GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS: Building a shared agenda for operational actors on non-economic loss and damage in the Pacific Islands seeks to address this by grounding a global policy dialogue about what constitutes as loss and damage in the Pacific Island experience.
What is Non-Economic Loss and Damage (NELD)?
Loss and damage can be described as either economic or non-economic. Economic loss and damages affect resources, goods, and services that are valued in a quantifiable way, such as crops, homes, or infrastructure. In contrast, non-economic loss and damage (NELD) refers to negative impacts that are difficult to measure in monetary terms, such as loss of culture, ecosystem services, and displacement (UNEP, 2024). These tend to be more irreparable and irreversible and makes it difficult to provide consistent and accurate evaluations of NELD, and the severity of harm experienced by local actors (Padin-Dujon, 2023).
Currently, most work on NELD is being undertaken in the research and policy spaces. Following the establishment of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (2013), and Article 8 of the Paris Agreement (2015), the creation of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (2023) is a significant landmark. Despite this, the institutional arrangements, modalities, structure, governance, and terms of reference of the new fund still require finalising. Furthermore, there are questions about the wider implications and recognition for NELD in these negotiations and legislations when it is not commensurable with monetary valuations of loss and damage.
As the value of NELD cannot easily be expressed in monetary terms, it is often neglected in climate-risk and cost estimates. As development and humanitarian work also focuses predominantly on quantifiable losses there is a gap in understanding how operational actors in these sectors can engage with NELD, for what purposes, and in which spaces. Consequently, there is timely opportunity to develop a shared understanding of key NELD priorities for climate, development, and humanitarian actors seeking to incorporate NELD considerations into operations and programming.
What does NELD mean in the Pacific?
Multiple frameworks highlight the impacts of loss and damage in the Pacific and can serve as regional policies and strategies to which future loss and damage policy and practices can be aligned. These include the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific (FRDP), led by the Pacific Resilience Partnership as the umbrella mechanism for implementation, the Boe Declaration on Regional Security, the 2050 Strategy for a Blue Pacific Continent, and the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility. Aspects of the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility and the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent are particularly relevant to NELD, prioritising the importance of Pacific peoples and their culture. Both documents focus on outlining resilience-based approaches for Pacific communities in responding to climate change and disasters. The below figure illustrates key examples of NELD across the Pacific Islands.
National governments are the key drivers of NELD playing a vital role in UNFCCC negotiations around its framing and the implementation agenda. In particular, the investment in the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage following COP28 has spurred much debate about the focus and direction of responses to NELD in Pacific Island countries.
NELD priorities for operational actors in the Pacific Islands
To date, NELD research has focused on policy, technical issues, and financing. However, there is now increasing demand for a better understanding of NELD from an operational perspective, and to understand its relevance for programming, especially in regions most impacted by climate change such as the Pacific Island Countries. There is an important role for operational agencies, both local and international, across the climate, development, and humanitarian sectors in the conceptualising of NELD and its integration into policy frameworks, yet less is known about how operational agencies can better understand and address NELD in their initiatives and programs.
“In responding to NELD, the interest of the communities is sometimes overlooked and that needs to be improved … operational actors, including NGOs and international agencies, play a critical role in better defining the things that really need attention for non-economic loss and damage” (Pacific researcher).
Our research outlines five key priorities for operational agencies to support a better understanding of NELD to guide future planning and programming in the Pacific Islands. They are intended to inform dialogue and thinking among local and national non-government, development, disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate and humanitarian actors, and provide examples of current initiatives and resources to support better coordination and linkages.
Five Key Priorities
- Strengthen contextual framing
- Build agency awareness: Provide opportunities to reflect on, conceptualise or understand NELD across programs, teams or strategies, drawing on local partners and experts.
- Contextualise understanding: Articulate how programs and actions will draw on and adapt global definitions of NELD and engage with global initiatives within contextual understanding across the Pacific Islands.
- Strengthen staff knowledge and skills: Knowledge and skills building for staff, including being able to navigate global and contextual framings of NELD with communities.
- Improve understanding of the unique dimensions of NELD
- Enabling discussions: Draw on local expertise and representatives to develop appropriate and ethical ways to engage in conversations with communities about how they think about and conceive NELD impact.
- Draw on traditional knowledge and experts: Build in default processes as part of programming to consistently draw on and value traditional knowledge and expertise in relation to NELD.
- Psychosocial impacts: Consider how programs can incorporate awareness of the psychosocial impacts of NELD in working with communities.
- Support nationally led approaches
- Support national approaches: Work closely with governments and nongovernment actors to align strategies and programs to support local NELD priorities.
- Be an effective intermediary: International organisations can play an effective intermediary role in linking community priorities and perspectives with those of international donors.
- Promote integrated approaches
- Collaborate: Identify opportunities for collaborating with local and national actors who focus on different aspects of disaster management or climate-related programming and identify how approaches to NELD can be used.
- Minimise duplication: Look for opportunities to integrate NELD considerations into existing disaster or climate related national and organisational strategies or policies, rather than creating new standalone approaches or structures.
- Document impacts
- Identify community priorities: Work with community leaders, local actors and marginalised groups to identify their priorities for capturing or documenting important traditional knowledge and practices.
- Enable community ownership: Ensure that this documentation belongs to the community, particularly if generated through organisational activities.
For more information about this research or support in implementing changes in your own organisation, please contact the research team: info@humanitarianadvisorygroup.org
