Page - 208 - in Loss and Damage from Climate Change - Concepts, Methods and Policy Options

208 O.Serdeczny ExamplesofindirectlyinducedNELDchangeincludeadverseimpactsonhuman healthfollowingthecontaminationoffreshwaterduetosealevelriseorheavyflood- ing (Nunn 2009). Loss of sense of place, traditional knowledge or cultural iden- tity are often indirect consequences of climate change ifmigration is necessary for populations or individuals to safeguard their survival (see chapter byHeslin et al. 2018).Migrationisfrequentlyframedasaformofadaptationdeliberatelychosenby migrants (Tacoli 2009).However, indirect non-economic losses are often incurred involuntarily as negative side-effects of adaptation. For example, following heavy flooding and submersion of informal housing inDouala, Cameroon a government officialwasquotedsaying:“Wethink theonlywaytoputanendtosuchcatastrophe inthe future is todemolishandforcepeopleoutof theseriskyandvulnerablezones” (Ngalame 2015). While such decisions are certain to avoid some non-economic losses,mostnotably lossofhuman lives, itmayalso lead to lossof social cohesion andagency.This showshowpreservingnon-economicvalues is complicated in sit- uations of necessary trade-offs,whichoftenoccur in the context of climate change and resource scarcity. The first three reports that have been published on NELD yield a catalogue of diverse recorded types of NELD that are summarised and categorised in Table8.1/Fig.8.1. (UNFCCC2013a—sameasFankhauserandDietz2014;Morris- seyandOliver-Smith2013;Andrei et al. 2015).Thestudies relyeitheron literature review (UNFCCC2013) expert knowledge (Morrissey andOliver-Smith 2013) or interviews (Andrei et al. 2015). AllauthorsreferencedinTable8.1/Fig.8.1stress thatpresentedtypesandrelated cases are often inter-related with economic losses. Further, it is stressed that the lists provided are non-exhaustive: Climate impacts in other regional settings and cultural value systems can in principle result in different and additional types of NELD than those listed here, depending on respective cultural values. Reporting biasintheliteraturemaymeanthatNELD—bothtypesandinstances—gounnoticed eitherbecausetheyarenotcomprehensivelyinvestigatedorbecauselossesinregions where theyoccur are not assessed.This has led to calls for a stronger involvement ofqualitativeclimate impact research (Tschakert2015). 8.3 ConceptualisingNELD InordertobetterunderstandwhysuchhighlydiverseNELDasdisplayedinTable8.1 is grouped under one activity area under theWIM it is helpful to direct attention at the shared attributes of non-economic values: (i) context-dependence and (ii) incommensurability, i.e. the lack of a common unit of measurement (see below). TheseattributesalsoshedlightonsomeofthechallengesthatNELDposetodecision- andpolicy-making,particularly in thecentralisedsettingof theUNFCCC.