Bangladesh has been striving for years to shift its narrative from being climate vulnerability to resilience. Over the years, it has managed to build itself as one of the climate-resilient countries, despite the geographical vulnerability, through building efficient early warning systems, community-led disaster management, and women’s leadership in resilience efforts. However, communities in Bangladesh continue to face existential crisis due to increasing climate variability and exacerbating extreme events – both rapid and slow onset, leading to losses and damages for vulnerable countries and communities. The increasing frequency and intensity of climate change impacts – both economic and non-economic – makes it necessary to place loss and damage at the center of climate discourse.
The topic of loss and damage gained significant momentum at the global stage following the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. Prior to COP27, there was a noticeable reluctance to acknowledge the concept of Loss & Damage, particularly in relation to providing compensation to countries in the global south. However, emerging evidence about the inevitability of loss and damage has cemented the fact that international monetary support will be needed for developing countries to address loss and damage, with the climate finance structure lacking a dedicated funding stream for addressing loss and damage, as previously highlighted.
