Loss and Damage Finance: Four Periods of Obstruction in the UN Climate Negotiations

The document analyzes thirty years of UN climate negotiations, arguing that countries in the Global North, particularly the United States, have consistently and deliberately obstructed the creation of a loss and damage finance mechanism. It divides this history into four periods: the initial efforts from 1991 to 2007, the lead-up to the Warsaw International Mechanism (2008-2013), the road to the Paris Agreement (2014-2015), and the post-Paris era (2016-present). The author highlights how advocates from the Global South, including AOSIS and the G77, shifted their framing from legal liability to moral risk to gain traction, while obstructionists used tactics such as conflating loss and damage with adaptation, proposing limited insurance alternatives, and explicitly excluding liability and compensation from official texts, most notably in Paragraph 51 of the Paris Agreement decision.

• From 1991 to 2007, early attempts by Vanuatu and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) to establish an insurance pool for sea-level rise were blocked, and the term "loss and damage" did not enter official UNFCCC texts until the 2007 Bali Action Plan.
• Between 2008 and 2013, a coalition of AOSIS, the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group, and the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) pushed for compensation mechanisms, but developed states obstructed these by conflating loss and damage with adaptation and weakening the resulting Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM).
• In the lead-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, advocates shifted from a legal framing of liability and compensation to a more ambiguous 'loss and damage' frame to increase support from non-state actors and the media.
• The Paris Agreement's Article 8 established a standalone provision for loss and damage, but this was a political compromise that explicitly foreclosed the possibility of liability or compensation through Paragraph 51 of the Decision text.
• Since 2016, developed countries have continued to obstruct loss and damage finance by keeping the issue off agendas, under-resourcing the WIM, and suggesting limited alternatives like climate risk insurance instead of a dedicated fund.
• At COP26 in Glasgow, the G77's request for a 'Glasgow Loss and Damage Facility' was denied, resulting only in an agreement to hold dialogues on funding arrangements, with the US, Australia, and EU leading the obstruction.

APA

Falzon, D., Roberts, J. T., Shaia, F., Hossain, M. F., Robinson, S.-A., Khan, M., & Ciplet, D. (2022). Loss and Damage Finance: Four Periods of Obstruction in the UN Climate Negotiations. Climate Social Science Network. https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LDObstruction_CSSNBriefing2.pdf

Chicago

Falzon, Danielle, J. Timmons Roberts, Fred Shaia, Md. Fahad Hossain, Stacy-ann Robinson, Mizan Khan, and David Ciplet. Loss and Damage Finance: Four Periods of Obstruction in the UN Climate Negotiations. Climate Social Science Network, 2022. https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LDObstruction_CSSNBriefing2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Falzon |first1=Danielle |last2=Roberts |first2=J. Timmons |last3=Shaia |first3=Fred |last4=Hossain |first4=Md. Fahad |last5=Robinson |first5=Stacy-ann |last6=Khan |first6=Mizan |last7=Ciplet |first7=David |title=Loss and Damage Finance: Four Periods of Obstruction in the UN Climate Negotiations |publisher=Climate Social Science Network |date=2022 |url=https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LDObstruction_CSSNBriefing2.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{falzon2022loss, author = {Falzon, Danielle and Roberts, J. Timmons and Shaia, Fred and Hossain, Md. Fahad and Robinson, Stacy-ann and Khan, Mizan and Ciplet, David}, title = {{Loss and Damage Finance: Four Periods of Obstruction in the UN Climate Negotiations}}, institution = {Climate Social Science Network}, year = {2022}, url = {https://cssn.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/LDObstruction_CSSNBriefing2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }