Page - 206 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

206 O.Serdeczny et al. 2014); diseases likemalaria spread into previously unaffected regions posing novelhealthrisks(Sirajetal.2014).Manyoftheseimpactsofclimatechangecanand havebeenquantifiedandmonetised.Acommonexampleofmonetisedandaggregate impact assessments is the social costofcarbon. Itmeasures theeconomiceffectsof climate change as an aggregate of changes in net agricultural productivity, human health, property damages and wider economic effects from, e.g., increased flood risk, and changes in energy systemcosts per unit of emitted carbon (UnitedStates Environmental ProtectionAgency 2015). The social cost of carbon thus derived is usedtocalculatethebenefitsofmitigationandadaptationpoliciesandtoweighthose against the costs of climate policies to arrive at an optimal level ofmitigation and adaptation. However—ashaslongbeenrecognised(e.g.IPCC1996:9;Tol2005)—notall the negative consequences of climate changehavebeencaptured in the assessments of the social costof carbon, aswell asother assessments that relyeitheronqualitative orquantifieddata.For example,mentaldistresshasbeenobservedat the individual level following forced relocationdue todeteriorating rural livelihoods.Thedistress has been linked to such losses as loss of social networks or physical surroundings thatprovidedforafeelingoffamiliarityandbelonging(Tschakertetal.2013).Atthe collective level, thedisruptionof informal networks as a consequenceofmigration can cause losses in the form of a population´s diminished capacity to cope with continuedclimateimpacts,furtherincreasingthetollofclimatechange(Olssonetal. 2014).Theeffectsofsuchoftenintangible lossesonhumanwellbeingareoftenhard tomeasure and are rarely included in estimates of observed and projected climate impacts, particularlywhereaggregates are sought.This canbeconsideredaserious limitation.Thefactthatvaluesotherthaneconomicareofsubstantiveimportancefor people is evidenced in livelihood decisions that involve trade-offs to the benefit of retainingsocialorculturalcapitalatthecostofpotentialeconomicgains.Anexample of suchdecisionsarecaseswheremigration isdesisteddespite its expectedpositive effectson income(Bebbington1999).There is thusgood reason topayattention to non-economicvaluesand to integrate themintopolicies thatmay lead toorprevent their lossesif theoverallgoal is tosafeguardandprotecthumanwell-being.Notably, adjustmentshavebeenmade toearlier economicassessmentsof climate impacts in order to account for non-market losses. Nordhaus (2014), for example, reports an adjustmentof25%of themonetiseddamages to reflectnon-monetised impacts.1 TheconceptofNELDtakes intofocus thedimensionsofclimatechange impacts that are hard to quantify andwhose value cannot easily be determined through the market. The term non-economic losses, which is often used interchangeablywith non-economic lossesanddamages,originates frommedicalmalpractice law.Meth- odsfortheassessmentandexpressionofnon-economicvaluesinmonetaryunitshave beendevelopedbut remaincontroversial (seeBox8.1).Non-market lossesmightbe amore adequate description,which, however, has not been adopted in the policy- 1It shouldbenoted,however, thathis listofnon-monetisedimpacts includesextremeevents,catas- trophiceventsthatareinherentlydifficult tomodel,andsomeotherwhicharenotconsideredNELD under theUNFCCC,asexplainedbelow.