Financing measures to avert, minimise and address Loss and Damage: Options for the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

Abstract

Over the last decade, loss and damage associated with climate change impacts (L&D) has become an important topic at the UN climate negotiations over the past ten years. Increasingly, climate negotiations and research focus on the question of how to finance measures that avert, minimise and address L&D. Literature on L&D has been exploring the financing of L&D-related activities and although several authors have suggested that this could be achieved through the Green Climate Fund (GCF), such suggestions have not been substantiated. The Conference of the Parties (COP) at the UN climate negotiations in Madrid invited the GCF Board to continue providing financial resources for activities relevant to averting, minimizing and addressing L&D, to the extent consistent with the institutional set-up of the GCF, and to facilitate efficient access in this regard. This report identifies to what extent the GCF already finances measures to avert, minimise and address L&D, and how the fund could continue to do so, in the context of the guidance given by the COP. In the context of the five ‘strategic workstreams’ of the work plan of the UNFCCC’s Executive Committee of the WIM Excom, this report analyses both the current institutional set-up and the current project portfolio of the GCF to determine to what extent the GCF may play a role in financing L&D measures in the coming years.