LOSS AND DAMAGE: UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON ECOSYSTEMS Reducing risks associated with climate change
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 is an internationally agreed framework that guides the risk management of multiple hazards including those associated with climate change.48
A number of risk management
strategies and instruments described in the framework can be considered as transitional through mitigation and adaptation to loss and damage. These include: risk reduction, risk retention, risk transfer, and approaches to specifically deal with slow-onset events. Applying these strategies, and following through, could reduce loss and damage by enabling management through adaptation.
Risk reduction measures are implemented before the advent of a weather event or climatic process to prevent loss and damage and can be structural or non-structural.49
sea level rise is considered a slow-onset threat and often not apparent until a convergence of circumstances delivers an extreme event. Most recent projections of sea level suggest a global average rise of up to 1.30 metres by 2100.50
Further
research suggests that global average sea level will continue to rise for at least 5,000 years.51
These projections of rise in
sea level may seem gradual and in a distant future. However, when extreme low pressure, high tides, an unobstructed angle of approach, strong winds, and a long fetch converge to produce extreme storm surges, ever rising sea level becomes a more relevant part of coastal life. This is what happened in the case of Typhoon Haiyan and also when Hurricane Sandy hit the Greater New York City region in 2012.52
New York City had
been implementing an adaptation strategy before the event, since 2008, so when Sandy arrived decision makers could reduce risks through strategic actions during the event.52
Risk transfer is a practice of formally or informally redistributing the risk of financial consequences for particular negative events from one party to another.53
by events which cannot be foreseen when and where they occur.54
Insurance is used to address the consequences of
extreme weather events but is not generally feasible for slowly developing and foreseeable events that happen with high certainty under different climate change scenario.55
Insurance
is not optimal for events that occur with very high frequency, such as recurrent inundation of flood plains.56
Risk retention refers to approaches that allow country to “self- insure” against climate stressors by means of its own social, economic, cultural, and other resources.49
For example, social For example,
protection measures can help societies to bounce back from the onset of unexpected severe weather events, and build resilience of the population to slow onset climatic processes. Establishing financial reserves to cushion the unexpected financial consequences from climate change impacts help repair the damage, and help societies recover from losses.49 Risk retention works more effectively when implemented together with other risk management approaches.56
Video: Interview with Koko Warner, United Nations University
The variety of risk
transfer mechanisms, such as insurance, form an essential part of disaster risk management strategies. Insurance tools play a role in preventing and managing loss and damage caused
48 © LossAndDamage Video Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSQCb3VWcWc
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