Suva Expert Dialogue

1. Exposure (to hazard) for all local government units, comprising geo-tagged disaggregated socioeconomic information, including infrastructure, information on population and ecosystems; b. Frequency of (hazardous) events; c. Sectoral impacts and corollary information.

Current mechanisms and financial instruments for managing climate risks inadequate:

• To bring focus on management options for risks posed by extreme weather events and slow onset events, respectively.
• Active engagement ensued in laying out how current mechanisms and financial instruments set up under the aegis of the UNFCCC were inadequate to deal with the mounting pressure of climate change on vulnerable populations. 
• Interestingly, the aspect of “risk creation” due to human activity was also introduced in the discussions.
• However, how this shall be handled in terms of redressals is anybody’s guess.

The mandate of the dialogue was clear: “to explore a wide range of information, inputs and views on ways for facilitating the mobilization and securing of expertise, and enhancement of support, including finance, technology and capacity building for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change, including extreme weather events and slow onset events.”

• Finance even emerged the single biggest concern among participants in a snap poll conducted by the facilitators at the beginning of the meet. 
• But while lack of access to financial mechanisms of addressing loss and damage as well as lack of technical and institutional capacities were brought up repeatedly during the course of discussions and from various different perspectives, the options to effectively tackle the same were few and far between.

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Doubt over feasibility of climate-based insurance system

• Climate or weather-based insurance systems, which has been the financial instrument of choice so far in dealing with calamitous impacts of climate change. 
• But insurance, too, as was pointed out several times during the course of the deliberations, is not without serious doubts that are currently far from being addressed.
• Insurance schemes and initiatives the world over have faced similar roadblocks in terms of affordability of premiums and the access of payouts following an extreme event or weather-related disaster.
• As extreme weather events have become more common and devastating, insurance premiums have gone out of reach of small and marginal farmers, who commonly form the majority of the workforce in developing countries.
• In fact, doubts were even cast on the feasibility of insurance to cover climate risks much longer due to the increasing uncertainty surrounding the destructive potential of extreme weather events. 
• However, even as participants urged repeatedly to think of insurance as just a small part of a much bigger issue, options and ideas for other possible financial instruments that could complement insurance did not materialise with the same frequency.

Forecast-based compensations

• One option that was put forth was that of forecast-based compensations where funds could be released to aid the preparedness of populations to deal with climate events. The need was also expressed to move from deterministic to probabilistic approaches to deal with the impacts of climate change in the current age. 
• However, nothing materialised much when it comes to creating new instruments and mechanisms that could counter climate impacts.
• A few disparate proposals for setting up of solidarity funds, climate change taxes and the creation of regional pools to fund insurance and compensation efforts were floated, but discussions on none of these reached a stage were a path to operationalisation was clearly visible.

Gaps in current loss and damage mechanisms:

• Another gaping hole in the loss and damage mechanisms currently in place is slow onset events. 
• We have known for decades how climate change is causing major alterations in ecosystems, contributing to anomalously high sea level rise and land degradation by ways of desertification across large parts of the world.
• Still, there has been no effort till date to address displacements and food and water insecurity felt across the globe. 
• That slow onset events had stumped the international community was clear in the final session of the two-day dialogue.
• Given the predictable but unavoidable nature of slow onset events, insurance is scarcely an option to address them, but currently, there seems to be no alternative that could be relied upon but the institution of new mechanisms, specifically to address just these kinds of events that build up over years and decades.

• As expected, issues of finance dominated discussions. However, overreliance on financial options overshadowed two other aspects of the mandate for the expert dialogue—those of technology and capacity building. 
• While the successes and failures of insurance dominated discussions, there was rarely a mention of how technology and capacity could be built in vulnerable countries to reduce the cost of climate-related disasters by means of improved assessment and reduction of risks. 
• The need and ways to streamline adaptation efforts for the same was another big miss over the two days. Discussions on these issues have been going on for more than a decade now, but there has been little progress on the ground.

The expert dialogue was undoubtedly an important step in the review process of the Warsaw International Mechanism. It missed opportunity to present fresh ideas and look beyond just direct financial options to deal with the mounting impacts of climate change.