Council on Energy, Environment and Water Integrated | International | Independent
Suggested citation: Aggarwal, Jhalak and Prasad, Sumit. 2024. What Gets Measured, Gets Done: Leveraging Transparency to Improve Loss and Damage Response
Transparency on loss and damage is a central tenet for nuanced insights on impacts, informed decision-making, and strengthening the case for targeted policy actions. The provisions under the "enhanced transparency framework" offer a voluntary option for countries to report information related to loss and damage—referring to the climate change impacts that cannot be addressed through mitigation or adaptation efforts. However, the guidance remains limited and often overlooked due to limited capacity, technical expertise, and data. This is further compounded by the lack of an accepted methodology, data standards, and domestic capabilities, making it imperative to build an enhanced understanding of science, data, delivery and institutional and policy environment.
Data, facts, and knowledge on various facets of L&D are critical to evidence-based decision-making on the prioritisation of developing countries for funding (based on impacts, ability to pay, and historical responsibility along with science). The issue brief evaluates the scope for climate transparency in loss and damage data and reporting to foster better response to loss and damage. It also identifies the relevant stakeholders and explores how their collective capacities can be leveraged to transcend the existing gaps. The report's outcomes can be instrumental in informing negotiations, enhancing climate transparency and operationalising effective delivery of the Fund for responding to Loss and damage.
Loss and Damage refers to the irreversible and unavoidable impacts of climate change that occur despite mitigation and adaptation efforts. With the rising number of climate disasters in terms of frequency and intensity, it is critical to build knowledge and transparency of actions. However, transparency, a central tenet in Loss and Damage (L&D1), is often overlooked due to limited guidance, capabilities, technical expertise, and data (Puig 2019). In the past few years, the international community has made efforts to provide bottom-up evidence to better understand climate risk and which of its components need to be considered, along with evolving needs and impacts.While the importance of L&D has been acknowledged and articulated in the global debate, some critical facets need to be further clarified. Given critical challenges, including the lack of an accepted methodology, data standards, and domestic capabilities, key stakeholders must develop an enhanced understanding of transparency in L&D. This includes improving our scientific understanding to establish linkages between natural and climate-induced disasters, establishing data collection and processing infrastructure, building an adequate knowledge base, enhancing the delivery and accessibility of dedicated finance at scale, and creating an enabling institutional and policy environment domestically. The goal of this brief is to support and strengthen the ongoing debate around L&D and explore how the collective capacities of research institutions, scientific bodies, donors, and implementing agencies can be enhanced to inform future climate finance negotiations and build climatetransparency.
One of the biggest impediments remains the lack of adequate data to establish links to extreme climaterelated events globally, which can form the basis of scientific analysis and cost and impact estimates, which can, ultimately, support negotiations and demands for the timely delivery of finance (UNDRR 2023).
Our analysis of the EM-DAT database, the globally recognised dataset for disaster data, highlights the lack of quality, standard guidelines and regular data collection, which has led to a limited understanding of climate impacts. We estimated data availability for 2000–20222 and found that 65 per cent of reported events across all countries lack data on economic damages. If we go deeper, among the total reported events, 63 per cent of reported events in developing countries, over 89 per cent in the least developed countries (LDCs), and nearly 60 per cent in small island developing states (SIDs lack data on economic damages. This poor accounting of economic damages indicates a lack of capacity and technical expertise and the persistence of methodological inaccuracies in estimating the economic costs of disasters, hiding their true cost. Our analysis notes that prominent developing countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Argentina, and Indonesia, lack data on economic damages for 70 per cent or more events. The trend is more notable in SIDS and LDCs, where 84 per cent of events lack data on disaster–related economic damages.
Some suggestions on how different stakeholders can address some of these challenges:
Loss and Damage (L&D) refer to the consequences of climate change that are unavoidable and irreversible despite mitigation efforts. It encompasses both economic losses, such as damage to infrastructure and agriculture, and non-economic impacts, like loss of cultural heritage and ecosystem services. L&D is particularly relevant for vulnerable regions like the Global South, where socio-economic and environmental factors exacerbate climate-related risks.
Transparency in L&D is crucial for evidence-based decision-making and effective negotiations. It helps quantify the true costs and impacts of climate-induced disasters, guiding resource allocation and supporting vulnerable countries in accessing necessary funding.
The primary challenges include data gaps, lack of standardised methodologies, limited technical capacity, and financial constraints in vulnerable countries. Many countries, particularly least-developed countries (LDCs) and SIDS, struggle to report economic damages due to these barriers. Furthermore, data collection often skews towards high-impact events, leaving smaller-scale and slow-onset disasters underreported.
Various stakeholders can enhance L&D transparency by developing standardised reporting templates, collecting local data, and leveraging scientific research to improve climate attribution. Research institutions can drive evidence-based reporting, while donors and implementing agencies can ensure that financial support is fairly allocated and effectively reaches vulnerable communities. Collaboration between scientific bodies, policymakers, and practitioners is key to refining data collection and reporting methods.
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