International:
Finance for Loss and Damage
Establish mechanisms within United Nations institutions such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as well as multilateral or bilateral funds such as the Green Climate Fund that deliver financial support and compensation to frontline communities for climate impacts (loss and damage).
What does this look like?
Establish a Loss and Damage financing facility within or across UN institutions, which could include the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).[1] This facility should be financed by wealthy countries and support developing countries experiencing climate disasters.
The guidelines for its establishment should include:
Requirements for wealthy, industrialised countries to contribute to this facility annually in line with their fair share of historical emissions.
Allocating an adequate percentage of finance governments collect through liability measures taken nationally- including litigation, fines, climate damages fines, and other measures detailed in this roadmap—towards a nation’s contribution to the Loss and Damage financing facility.
Requirements that funding (whether from the financing facility directly or via national funds) be distributed to and in the control of communities enduring the greatest impacts of climate change.
The governance of this facility must:
Include strong requirements to protect against the risk for conflicts of interests to unduly influence how the finance is distributed.
Centre the representation and decision-making of communities in the Global South, including women, indigenous peoples, youth, and local communities (including peasants, fisherfolks, nomadic and rural peoples).
Allocate a proportion of multilateral and bilateral funds that finance climate actions to go towards mandatory Loss and Damage funding.
Examples of relevant funds include the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Climate Investment Funds (CIF), Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Adaptation Fund.
These funds should be handled accountably, transparently, and should be governed with and by people, not dictated by corporations or the private sector.
Implementing the measures of the liability roadmap
Decision-makers and movements at all levels should keep the following in mind when implementing the measures laid out in this roadmap:
Enacting these policies and measures is simply the first step to holding polluting and destructive industries liable: There will be much work for government officials, decision-makers, activists and civil society alike to do to ensure these measures are fully implemented and move us toward the transformative change the world needs.
Liability should be applied to all industries and corporations that make business decisions that contribute to climate change and its impacts, or that cause harm to people and nature. In addition to the fossil fuel industry, these industries include but are not limited to agribusiness, forestry, mining, and the energy sector.
Many of these measures could equally apply to state-owned corporations. Because the national contexts and unique needs vary from country to country, it is worth considering where to apply and how to adapt the principles and measures listed in the Liability Roadmap to address state-owned polluting corporations. Factors to consider when doing so could include but are not limited to the degree of democratic control over the entity, role and use of funding from oil/gas revenues, and responsiveness of the entity to transition to regenerative, renewable energy sources.
Measures implemented at the national level should support and reinforce, rather than contradict, measures implemented at the sub-national and local, and vice versa.
1 United Nations, and Canada. 1992. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. [New York]: United Nations, General Assembly, https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf.