This report addresses the urgent issue of climate-related losses and damages. Climate change is driving fundamental changes to the planet with adverse impacts on human livelihoods and well-being, putting development gains at risk.

This report addresses the urgent issue of climate-related losses and damages. Climate change is driving fundamental changes to the planet with adverse impacts on human livelihoods and well-being, putting development gains at risk. The scale and extent of future risks for a given location is, however, subject to uncertainties in predicting complex climate dynamics as well as the impact of individual and societal decisions that determine future greenhouse gas emissions as well as patterns of socio-economic development and inequality. The report approaches climate-related losses and damages from a risk management perspective. It explores how climate change will play out in different geographies, over time, focusing on the three types of hazards: slow-onset changes such as sea-level rise; extreme events including heatwaves, extreme rainfall and drought; and the potential for large-scale non-linear changes within the climate system itself. The report explores approaches to reduce and manage risks with a focus on policy action, finance and the role of technology in supporting effective risk governance processes. Drawing on experiences from around the world, least developed countries and small island developing states in particular, the report highlights a number of good practices and points to ways forward.

This report addresses the urgent issue of climate-related losses and damages. Climate change is driving fundamental changes to the planet with adverse impacts on human livelihoods and well-being, putting development gains at risk. The scale and extent of future risks for a given location is, however, subject to uncertainties in predicting complex climate dynamics as well as the impact of individual and societal decisions that determine future greenhouse gas emissions as well as patterns of socio-economic development and inequality. The report approaches climate-related losses and damages from a risk management perspective. It explores how climate change will play out in different geographies, over time, focusing on the three types of hazards: slow-onset changes such as sea-level rise; extreme events including heatwaves, extreme rainfall and drought; and the potential for large-scale non-linear changes within the climate system itself. The report explores approaches to reduce and manage risks with a focus on policy action, finance and the role of technology in supporting effective risk governance processes. Drawing on experiences from around the world, least developed countries and small island developing states in particular, the report highlights a number of good practices and points to ways forward.

This book provides an authoritative insight on the Loss and Damage discourse by highlighting state-of-the-art research and policy linked to this discourse and articulating its multiple concepts, principles and methods. Written by leading researchers and practitioners, it identifies practical and evidence-based policy options to inform the discourse and climate negotiations. With climate-related risks on the rise and impacts being felt around the globe has come the recognition that climate mitigation and adaptation may not be enough to manage the effects from anthropogenic climate change. This recognition led to the creation of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage in 2013, a climate policy mechanism dedicated to dealing with climate-related effects in highly vulnerable countries that face severe constraints and limits to adaptation. Endorsed in 2015 by the Paris Agreement and effectively considered a third pillar of international climate policy, debate and research on Loss and Damage continues to gain enormous traction. Yet, concepts, methods and tools as well as directions for policy and implementation have remained contested and vague. Suitable for researchers, policy-advisors, practitioners and the interested public, the book furthermore: • discusses the political, legal, economic and institutional dimensions of the issue• highlights normative questions central to the discourse • provides a focus on climate risks and climate risk management. • presents salient case studies from around the world.

This publication serves as a roadmap for exploring and managing climate risk in the U.S. financial system. It is the first major climate publication by a U.S. financial regulator. The central message is that U.S. financial regulators must recognize that climate change poses serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system, and they should move urgently and decisively to measure, understand, and address these risks. Achieving this goal calls for strengthening regulators’ capabilities, expertise, and data and tools to better monitor, analyze, and quantify climate risks. It calls for working closely with the private sector to ensure that financial institutions and market participants do the same. And it calls for policy and regulatory choices that are flexible, open-ended, and adaptable to new information about climate change and its risks, based on close and iterative dialogue with the private sector. At the same time, the financial community should not simply be reactive—it should provide solutions. Regulators should recognize that the financial system can itself be a catalyst for investments that accelerate economic resilience and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. Financial innovations, in the form of new financial products, services, and technologies, can help the U.S. economy better manage climate risk and help channel more capital into technologies essential for the transition. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5247742

This volume reports on the research completed as part of the multi-year New England Climate Adaptation Project (NECAP), a partnership between the MIT Science Impact Collaborative, the US Government's National Estuarine Research Reserve System, four New England coastal towns, and the Consensus Building Institute. The first half of the book offers a series of chapters that explain how and why climate adaptation requires collective rather than individual risk management. It argues that most of the responsibility for responding to climate risks--including sea level rise, storm intensification, changing patterns of rainfall, and increasing temperature--must be taken by local and regional stakeholders. While collective action is critical for climate adaptation, many communities are not ready to effectively tackle the adaptation challenge, and need enhanced collaborative capacity to support collective risk management. Using concrete examples, this book offers strategies to increase the readiness of communities to deal effectively with the impacts of climate change. It introduces methods for assessing local climate change risks and describes tools for evaluating the social and political contexts in which collective action can take place. It also shares NECAP research demonstrating that engaging communities in tailored role-play simulations has impacted public understanding of climate risks and local readiness to support collective risk management efforts. The second half of the book presents the products of NECAP, including stakeholder assessments (showing how key stakeholders think about climate risks), risk assessments (including downscaled forecasts from global climate models presented in a way that is accessible to the public), tailored role play simulations (that other communities can use to engage residents in their locality), community case studies (that provide statistical and qualitative evidence of the before-and-after impact of public engagement in serious games), and the results of public opinion polls following interventions in each community after almost 18 months.