Insurance Solutions in the Context of Climate-Change-Related Loss and Damage: Needs, Gaps and Roles of the UNFCCC in Addressing Loss and Damage

Abstract

The UNFCCC can foster long-term commitment to risk transfer in order to enable sustainable solutions and partnerships. A global approach to risk transfer, embedded in a coherent strategy to manage the negative impacts of climate change, can be a sustainable solution to parts of the loss and damage spectrum. An international climate-risk insurance facility will help better diversify risks of loss and damage from extreme weather events, lower the costs of managing these risks, and ensure more timely and targeted delivery of support when catastrophes strike. This could be part of a wider coordination function of a loss-and-damage mechanism, which could be operationalised through a series of regional risk-management platforms, including risk insurance pools, which could collaborate and coordinate on the management of loss and damage.11 See Decision 7/CP.17, para.'s 1-9; available at http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/durb an_nov_2011/decisions/application/pdf/cop17_loss_damage.pdf, last accessed 14 May 2013. 12 (ibid.:para. 2 and Annex 2). 13 (ibid.:para. 5).

Climate change-related non-economic loss and damage in Bangladesh and Japan

“…Weather-related events are reported to have been increasing in the past three decades (Warner et al, 2012). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that current climate change effects have changed the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme weather and climate events (Seneviratne et al, 2012).…”