european capacity building initiativeecbi loss and damage legal and scientific aspects raj bavishi...
Post on 11-Jan-2016
215 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbiLoss and Damage
Legal and Scientific aspects
Raj Bavishi (Legal Response Initiative)Professor Myles Allen (University of Oxford)
9 July 2012
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive
initia
tive e
uro
péen
ne d
e re
nfo
rcem
en
t des
cap
acité
s ecbi
for sustained capacity building in support of international climate change negotiations
pour un renforcement durable des capacités en appui aux négociations internationales sur les changements climatiques
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Introduction
What is loss and damage?
Current status in the negotiations
Addressing loss and damage
Legal approaches
Issues of causation
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
What is loss and damage?
Adaptation or beyond adaptation?
Terminology important – sets conceptual parameters
Categories of damage Avoidable loss and damage avoided
Sufficient mitigation and adaptation
Avoidable loss and damage not avoided
Insufficient mitigation and adaption
Unavoidable loss and damage
Regardless of future mitigation or adaptation measures
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The UNFCCC negotiations
UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol Loss and damage not explicitly mentioned
Focus on mitigation
But chapeau to Article 4.8 – insurance
Calls for compensation for climate change damage are not new Bangladesh (2005)
AOSIS (2007)
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The Bali Action Plan (2007)
Decision 1/CP.13
Para 1(c)(ii)
Consideration of risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk sharing and transfer mechanism such as insurance
Para 1(c)(iii)
Disaster reduction strategies and means to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Cancun – AWG-LCA (2010)
Decision 1/CP.16
Strengthen…expertise in order to understand and reduce loss and damage associated with to the adverse effects of climate change, including impacts related to extreme weather events and slow onset events (para 25)
Establish a work programme in order to consider, including through workshops and expert meetings, as appropriate, approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change (para 26)
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Durban (2011)
Decision 7/CP.17 (Work programme on loss and damage)
Work programme split into three thematic areas Assessing the risk of loss and damage
Approaches to address loss and damage
Expert meetings
Technical paper on slow onset events
Role of the Convention in enhancing implementation
Recommendation to be made to COP18
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Work in 2012
First half of year - focus on risk assessment
Approaches to address loss and damage to be discussed in 4 expert meetings
First meeting:13-15 June – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Risk reduction
Risk retention
Risk transfer
Institutions and governance arrangements
Next meeting: 23-25 July – Mexico City, Mexico
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Addressing loss and damage
Progress in negotiations is slow
International mechanism dealing with the various elements of addressing loss and damage is important
Current regulatory framework (international and domestic) Restricted
Weak
Significant issues
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Legal approaches
Negotiation – Build on Article 4.8 Convention
Litigation – tort based liability Lack of consistency
International law – State Responsibility / ICJ opinion Issues of lex specialis
Human rights – family life / right to property Extraterritoriality
Compensation Fund – civil liability Nuclear liability / liability for oil spills
Issue of causation
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Issues of causation
Lorenz (1982): “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”
Updated for the 21st century: “Climate is what you affect, weather is what gets you”
Weather is directly observable, but unpredictable.
Climate is predictable, but not directly observable.
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The 2011 Thai Floods
"Global climate change has definitely contributed to the recent unprecedented flooding taking place in Thai south,” Thailand's deputy chief negotiator to the UNFCCC
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The 2011 Thai Floods
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The 2011 Thai Floods
Rainfall not obviously related to global climate change (van Oldenborgh et al, 2012).Unprecedented damage due to unprecedented vulnerability?
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The 2010 Russian Heatwave
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
The 2010 Russian Heatwave
Not “impossible without warming”
Odds have increased since 1960s, but the change is still a small contribution to the size of the event.
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
Outstanding issues of causation Suppose human influence on climate
increased the risk of a record-breaking heatwave by a factor of 4.
Should we attribute 75% of the harm caused by that heatwave to human influence on climate?
No – some of this harm would have been caused by a non-record-breaking heatwave.
So we need to extend hydrometeorological modelling to explicit impact modelling to compare probability distributions of actual damage: no-one has done this yet.
eu
rop
ean
cap
acity
bu
ildin
g
initia
tive e
cbi
top related