The unresolved question of ‘non-economic’ loss and damage

November 27, 2024

DHAKA – Some 64 kilometres southwest of Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, is the Gobustan State Historical and Cultural Reserve. After the first week of the Baku Climate Conference, the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP), we had the opportunity to visit these relics of our ancestors.

As I observed the stone-carved cavities in Gobustan, I wondered what Stone Age humans might have stored in them—perhaps meat, fruits, herbs, or seeds. Cooking rice was not yet part of civilisation, as rice had not been discovered; only later domesticated by Homo sapiens. Over time, wild rice was tamed, but the “Green Revolution project” transformed agriculture into a profit-driven industry, eradicating the diversity of traditional rice and other crop genetic resources.

In parallel, the discourse on climate change adaptation and payment for loss and damage is growing, with the Global South advocating for an Adaptation Fund and a Loss and Damage (L&D) Fund. Yet, L&D negotiations largely focus on economic losses, leaving non-economic loss and damage underrepresented in the global climate negotiations.

On our way back from Gobustan, I wondered: could we ever put a price tag on these priceless remnants? If these artefacts were to be lost to a volcanic eruption or another climate-induced disaster, the losses would fall under what we describe as the category of non-economic loss and damage in climate discourse.

The Baku Climate Conference, dubbed the “Finance COP,” focused more on promoting carbon credits and false solutions than addressing people-led adaptation and loss and damage. The unresolved, irreversible impacts of climate change continue to grow. Disasters like cyclones, droughts, floods, and heatwaves not only cause economic