A harmonized country-level dataset to support the global stocktake regarding loss and damage from climate change

Abstract

Under the Paris Agreement, parties should undertake a global stocktake of progress toward meeting the goals of the agreement and tackling climate change. The first global stocktake will be undertaken in 2023, and an assessment of loss and damage from climate change is an important part of the process. Loss and damage refer to the impacts of climate change felt when mitigation and adaptation efforts are inadequate or absent. Much data, including metrics and indicators relevant for loss and damage, are held in existing global databases, but these are disparate and cannot easily be combined and compared to support the global stocktake. We combine relevant primary data sources to provide a harmonized country-level global dataset containing relevant indicators of recorded losses and damages from climate-related events; exposure to climate-related events; country vulnerability and adaptation readiness; scientific studies of climate change attribution; financial support for climate adaptation; and contextual governance conditions. The indicators are standardized against country population and GDP where relevant. We describe original data sources, processing steps, and an overview of key indicators in the dataset. We also compare the assembled data to existing global risk databases; namely, the INFORM risk index and the World Risk Index. This comparison, provided in the Supporting Information, shows a large amount of redundancy among vulnerability and governance indicators, and we suggest that creators of new databases and risk indices be clear about data limitations and the gaps that specific indices attempt to fill in the global data landscape. We recommend the standard use of ISO codes in future databases of this nature, as well as clear metadata regarding how overseas territories are treated relative to their sovereign state, and information on dissolution and creation of states over time.