Terminology Framing loss and damage History Politics Current status

Politics
One of the reasons for the lack of progress on the topic over the years under the UNFCCC has been the reluctance of the rich, Annex 1 countries to even allow any talk about it as they felt it was really about liability and compensation. These were taboo subjects as far as they were concerned.
It was only when the other vulnerable countries such as the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Africa Group joined forces in support of AOSIS at COP16 in Cancun that the initial breakthrough was achieved to enable the topic to be explored.
In Warsaw at COP19 it was finally “un-tabooed” by the rich countries with the agreement of the WIM.
Current status
The Executive Committee of the WIM has met several times to develop their work plan to deliver advice to Parties at COP22 in 2016.
The work plan includes looking at evidence of both economic as well as non-economic loss and damage from future climate change, as well as both rapid onset climatic events, such as floods and hurricanes, as well as slow onset events such as droughts and sea level rise.
There is a great deal of scope for the scientific community working on this issue to explore the various kinds of loss and damage that can be expected in the future and come up with a way to deal with them.
Insurance
One of the tools that are already available to deal with future loss and damage is insurance, where one pays a premium before an event occurs (for instance, a flood) and gets paid compensation only after the event occurs.
There are already a number of pilot schemes for Weather Index Based insurance (IBI) in different parts of the world including the Caribbean, Africa and Bangladesh.
There is much scope to explore these further and examine their usefulness as tools to deal with future human induced climate change related loss and damage.
Future prospects
Over the next few years there is a window of opportunity for scientists and governments to examine ways in which the inevitable future losses and damages caused by climate change can be handled, and an agreement forged in COP22 for a way to deal with them in a fair and just manner.