Page - 28 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

28 R.Mechler et al. helpaddresspotentiallyirreversible,butavoidable, lossesofcultural traditionsinthe eventofmassdisplacement asanalysed for theMarshall Islands (Heslin2018). Facedwith the increasing impacts of climate change and recognising that gains in development and poverty alleviation are severely hampered by climate change, the government of Bangladesh is planning to set up a national L&Dmechanism to support those that have already incurred significant losses and damages beyond adaptation (Haque et al. 2018). Flood climate risk management case studies on Nepal, India, Bangladesh andPeru show limits to adaptation due to inadequate transboundarygovernance, insufficientdevolutionofmandatesandfundingtolower administrativelevels,aswellasinadequateaccesstoanduseoftechnology(chapters byMechler et al. 2018b;vandenHombergandMcQuistan2018). Acase studyon theSahel and the semi-arid drylands of East Africa discusses how climate variability and change have affected primary productivity and food productionassupportingandprovisioningecosystemservices.Lossesanddamages reported in this context are livestock losses, food insecurity, displacement, cultural losses(includingtraditional livelihoodsystems),andfinally,conflictrelatedtothese. Thecasealsoshowsthatoversimplificationmustbeavoidedinacontextofmultiple riskfactors,includingthegovernanceormanagementofnaturalresources.Examples forriskfactorspresentedarealackofinvestmentinwater-relatedinfrastructure,gaps in access to agricultural technology, barriers topastoralists’ freedomofmovement, or lackofhealthcare services,whichhavealsocontributed to increasing lossesand damages (vanderGeest et al. 2018). Migration, particularly if forced, is an example of “beyond the limits of adapta- tion.”Contextualisingmigrationasmultifactorial, a selectionofcases includingsea level rise inPacific Island States, cyclonic storms inBangladesh, anddesertifica- tion inWest Africa, aswell as deforestation inSouth America’s SouthernCone, presents instancesofmigrationdrivenbyclimate changeandvariability, aswell as other factors (Heslin et al. 2018). TheArctic case on relocation and outmigration provides examples of instances “beyond adaptation” due to institutional, political, organisational and jurisdictional factors hindering implementation of adaptation to climate impacts, thus leading to lossesanddamages (LandauerandJuhola2018). Proposition 4 Insurancemechanismscanonlyservethepreventionandcureaspects emphasisedintheL&Ddebateif theyaremadeaffordablewithsupport fromoutside the insurancepool, and if theyarepurposefullydesigned toencourageorprescribe riskreduction.Whiletheirapplicationsarelimitedtosuddenonsetevents, insurance instrumentscanhelptoexploreadaptationfrontiers,inwhichmanyfactors,including technology,playarole. Climate insurance has been one of the foci of debate on L&D and theWIM workplan.Recent experience, however, shows that insurance instruments canonly serveasa risk-reducingandequitable response to lossesanddamages fromweather extremes in developing countries if they are designed to explicitly reward risk- reducing behaviour and if they are supported by those outside the insurance pool. Commercial insuranceisbasedontheprincipleofmutuality,accordingtowhichthe