How Will We Pay for Loss and Damage?

The devotion of a full article in the Paris Agreement to loss and damage was a major breakthrough for the world’s most vulnerable nations seeing to gain support for climate impacts beyond what can be adapted to. But how will loss and damage be paid for, and who will pay it? Will ethics be part of this decision? Here we ask what are the possible means of raising predictable and adequate levels of funding to address loss and damage? Utilizing a framework developed by Marco Grasso (2009, 2010), we argue that making the ethical connections between addressing climate impacts and finance mechanisms could significantly enhance their likelihood of being adopted. We briefly review insurance mechanisms and catastrophe bonds, and then…