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In the upcoming week, the 13th meeting of the WIM ExCom will take place (April 27-30 2021). One very important issue to discuss will be – among other issues – the work of the Expert Groups as they play a major role in carrying out the activities of the ExComs workplan. Especially the work on Action and Support, Slow-onset Events and Non-economic Losses will be discussed and concrete steps for developing the respective workplans with concrete activities will have to be decided upon. The meeting will take place in a virtual format and even over one year in the COVID-19-pandemic this setting still poses some substantive challenges to the discussions and inclusiveness as well the involvement of observers.
The Coronavirus pandemic has delayed the collection of evidence in the trial between the Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya and the German utility RWE at the Upper State Court in Hamm (Germany). Nevertheless, a new scientific study is providing credence to the legal claim: a prestigious team of researchers has used climate models to demonstrate that the risk of glacial lake flooding affecting the city of Huaraz is almost entirely due to anthropogenic climate change.
The Briefing Paper on the 12th meeting of the Executive Committee (ExCom) of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage from 12-16th October 2020 is mainly directed at persons interested in the discussions on Loss and Damage within the UNFCCC process.
The meeting will take place in the middle of the Covid-19-crisis that comes across with severe challenges for vulnerable groups but also in regards of keeping up climate diplomacy.
The outcome of the World Climate Conference (COP25) in Madrid, held 2 to 15 December 2019, clearly shows the strengths and weaknesses of the Paris Agreement. It shows that the days of cosmetic climate policy are over, but also that the coordinated resistance of the brakemen is growing as a result.
Under the motto "Time to act", the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place from 2 to 13 December 2019 in Madrid, Spain, under Chile's presidency. After all, it is finally time for action in the logic of the UN negotiations. Following the decisions of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 and its implementation rules last year, nothing stands in the way of decisive action.
Multi-Actor-Partnerships offer an approach to address complex challenges through cooperation between actors from civil society, politics, the private sector and academia. The short film outlines the relevant framework conditions and criteria for a successful partnership. An example from India illustrates the advantages of this approach.
The short film illustrates how cooperation between actors from civil society, politics, the private sector and academia helps to incorporate different perspectives and backgrounds in solutions to complex challenges. The example of climate risk insurance in Kenya illustrates the implementation of this approach.
Tropical cyclones have heavy impacts on an increasing number of countries. In 2017, the hurricane season in the Caribbean Sea was particularly strong and left several islands destroyed. Furthermore there are some developing countries that have difficulties to recover as they are regularly hit by weather catastrophes. Especially poorer countries like Sri Lanka, Nepal or Vietnam are facing great challenges. All in all, in 2017 11.500 people died because of extreme weather events. Economic damages amounted to approximately US$ 375 billion (calculated in purchasing-power parity, PPP). So it was the year with the highest weather-related losses ever recorded.
Loss and damage (L&D) due to climate change impacts is already a reality for many people, especially the most vulnerable. So far, there is no prospect of sufficient financial support for dealing with actual L&D within the climate regime (UNFCCC). Where international climate diplomacy doesn’t advance, affected people start to take the legal avenue to address the problem of L&D. Based on this assessment, this paper analyses the status quo of international climate change litigation, revealing how the current court cases are turning an abstract risk of climate claims into a concrete one.
