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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.
Loss and Damage from Climate Change
Concepts, Methods and Policy Options
- Titel
- Loss and Damage from Climate Change
- Untertitel
- Concepts, Methods and Policy Options
- Autoren
- Reinhard Mechler
- Laurens M. Bouwer
- Thomas Schinko
- Swenja Surminski
- JoAnne Linnerooth-Bayer
- Verlag
- Springer Open
- Datum
- 2019
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-319-72026-5
- Abmessungen
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 580
- Schlagwörter
- Environment, Climate change, Environmental law, Environmental policy, Risk management
- Kategorien
- International
- Naturwissenschaften Umwelt und Klima