Loss and Damage and limits to adaptation: recent IPCC insights and implications for climate science and policy

Sustainability Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00807-9 NOTE AND COMMENT Loss and Damage and limits to adaptation: recent IPCC insights and implications for climate science and policy R. Mechler1 · C. Singh2 · K. Ebi3 · R. Djalante4 · A. Thomas5 · R. James6 · P. Tschakert7 · M. Wewerinke‑Singh8 · T. Schinko1 · D. Ley9 · J. Nalau10 · L. M. Bouwer11 · C. Huggel12 · S. Huq13 · J. Linnerooth‑Bayer1 · S. Surminski14 · P. Pinho15 · R. Jones6 · E. Boyd16 · A. Revi2 Received: 22 January 2020 / Accepted: 13 April 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract Recent evidence shows that climate change is leading to irreversible and existential impacts on vulnerable communities and countries across the globe. Among other effects, this has given rise to public debate and engagement around notions of climate crisis and emergency. The Loss and Damage (L&D) policy debate has emphasized these aspects over the last three decades. Yet, despite institutionalization through an article on L&D by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the Paris Agreement, the debate has remained vague, particularly with reference to its remit and relationship to adaptation policy and practice. Research has recently made important strides forward in terms of developing a science perspective on L&D. This article reviews insights derived from recent publications by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, and presents the implications for science and policy. Emerging evidence on hard and soft adaptation limits in certain systems, sectors and regions holds the potential to further build momentum for climate policy to live up to the Paris ambition of stringent emission reductions and to increase efforts to support the most vulnerable. L&D policy may want to consider actions to extend soft adaptation limits and spur transformational, that is, nonstandard risk management and adaptation, so that limits are not breached. Financial, technical, and legal support would be appropriate for instances where hard limits are transgressed. Research is well positioned to further develop robust evidence on critical and relevant risks at scale in the most vulnerable countries and communities, as well as options to reduce barriers and limits to adaptation. Keywords Climate risk · Loss and Damage · Limits to adaptation · Transformation Handled by John Edward Hay, University of the South Pacific Rarotonga, Cook Islands. * R. Mechler 8 University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji 9 Latinoamerica Renovable, Guatemala City, Guatemala 1 IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria 10 2 Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore, India 3 Center for Health and the Global Environment (CHanGE), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Cities Research Institute and Griffith Climate Change Response Program (GCCRP), Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia 11 4 United Nations University-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Tokyo, Japan Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Hamburg, Germany 12 University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland 13 ICCCAD, Dhaka, Bangladesh 14 London School of Economics (LSE), London, UK 15 Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm, Sweden 16 Lund University, Lund, Sweden 5 6 7 University of the Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas Oxford University Centre for the Environment, Oxford, UK Department of Geography, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Sustainability Science Introduction: Paris agreement and climate‑related risks The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5 °C global warming (SR1.5) (IPCC SR1.5-IPCC 2018) suggests that achieving the 1.5 °C goal as stipulated by the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC 2015) will significantly reduce projected risks and further rises in observed climate change-related impacts compared to current warming of 1.1 °C above pre-industrial global temperature. These risks and anticipated impacts include increases in the frequency and/ or intensity of heavy precipitation, high temperature, heatwaves, and sea-level rise, and are expected to lead to continuous and widespread impacts on human, natural, and managed systems. The SR1.5 demonstrates that each (half) degree of warming increases the magnitude of risks from anthropogenic climate change across sectors and regions, and that disadvantaged and vulnerable populations are at disproportionally higher risk from both present and future warming. In principle, the IPCC finds the achievement of the 1.5 °C target possible, even with current mitigation technologies; however, massive upscaling and quick operationalisation are required. Yet, given omnipresent debates around the climate crisis and emergency, what evidence exists with respect to impacts and risks that may be irreversible, existential, and that already breach adaptation limits – today and in a future world that is warmer by 1.5 °C and more? The SR1.5 (IPCC 2018), additional recent IPCC reports- the Special Reports on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL) and on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a changing climate (SROCC) (IPCC 2019a, b), and other research, including two recently published multiauthored books (Filho and Nalau 2018; Mechler et al. 2018), for the first time summarize such evidence with important implications for research, implementation, and policy, including for the international climate policy debate under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM). With the WIM’s 2019 review of its achievements carried out and expert groups created to facilitate the move from debate to action, it is timely to review relevant insights from these and other scientific publications and their implications for science and policy. Loss and Damage—a first time for the IPCC Over the last three decades, Loss and Damage (L&D)1 has become increasingly relevant for international climate policy and advocacy. The discourse began during the establishment 1 A distinction made here and elsewhere is to distinguish between capitalised letter Loss and Damage to refer to political debate vs. lowercase letter losses and damages to broadly relate to (observed) impacts and (projected) risks (see Mechler et al. 2018). 13 of the UNFCCC in the early 1990s with a proposal by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) on compensation and insurance for losses linked to sea-level rise (INC 1991). The subject matter is complex and controversial—some consider it to be about liability and compensation, while others suggest climate risk insurance should be largely ramped up. Hence, it took more than two decades and increasingly robust evidence on climate change impacts and risks, as synthesised by the IPCC (e.g. through the 5th Assessment Report, IPCC 2014) for L&D to be recognised institutionally by the UNFCCC. In 2013, negotiat (...truncated)