On 12 October, the German Parliament Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development  held a public hearing on the topic: “Climate-related damage and loss: Supporting people in regions most affected by the regions most affected by the climate crisis in coping”.

The goal of the public hearing was to identify existing as well as future solutions to help people in the Global South deal with climate-related damages and losses, and to  examine the potential effectiveness of instruments such as the Global Climate Risk Shield.

Also to be included is the proposal developed at COP26 by the countries and China for a Loss and Damage Finance Facility, which is currently being discussed as part of the three-year Glasgow Dialogue. The contributions of the experts as well as the findings at the scientific level were to provide input for the members of parliament and to make recommendations for further recommendations for further political work.

Our expert Dr. Maxime Souvignet was present at the hearing and presented five key messages to contribute to the dialogue. These key messages in short were:

• Climate-vulnerable countries need finance to act on loss and damage, and they need it as soon as possible. So far, assistance has been concentrated on technical advisory and capacity building;
• The Global Shield offers viable solutions to loss and damage. On the benefit side, it is a concrete, actionable proposal that can bring funding to countries and people that need it in a short amount of It builds upon existing structures and aims to better coordinate initiatives and funding. However, it should not close the door to other loss and damage financing initiatives in the future;
• CDRFI is not the silver bullet to solve all the many problems related to loss and Some processes, e.g. slow-onset processes, as well as non-economic loss and damage, cannot be insured and/or need political strategies. CDRFI instruments need to be part of integrated risk management strategies;
• More investment is needed in climate and risk analytics. With the promotion of open- source risk models, data and expertise, governments and people in the global south shall be able to answer more questions related to loss and damage;
• Germany, with a history of sustained action in the field, should insist on the World Bank to agree to and implement changes necessary in the governance structure and direct access modalities, as well as to fully cooperate in coordination and information sharing to better serve the Global The same standard should be applied to Global Shield funds administered by other entities.

Please read the entire statement from Dr. Souvignet HERE

To  see the statements from the other experts present and/or watch the livestream of the hearing, click HERE