Presentation from the OECD Workshop “Approaches to reducing and managing the risk of losses and damages from climate change” (15 April 2021) –  Session 2, Maarten van Aalst, Director, International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

1. Maarten van Aalst
vanaalst@climatecentre.org
@mkvaalst
OECD workshop
15 April 2021
Managing the risks of losses and
damages from climate change
A humanitarian perspective on how
to more effectively address
emerging loss and damage

3. 1. Loss and Damage is a humanitarian reality
• We are already facing limits to adaptation
• Impacts are often systemic and compound
• Impacts are very uneven

5. World Disasters Report 2020:
Rising impact of weather-related disaters
Cost of Doing Nothing (2019):
Potential 50% increase in humanitarian needs
by 2030, doubling by 2050
(depending on climate and development
scenarios)

6. Children and Youth
Not everyone experiences the climate crisis the same way
Urban Poor Indigenous People
Older People and Persons with
Disabilities
Role of Gender Migrants and Displaced
Persons

9. 2. Risk-informed Early Action is a key ingredient
• Early action is more effective than response
• Note: we also still need response and
reconstruction
• Short-term risk action needs to be connected
to longer-term risk management (including
adaptation)

12. Anticipatory Action around the world in advance of natural
hazards

13. Risk-informed Early Action Partnership (REAP)

14. 3. We need to build financing systems that reach
those most in need
This includes a focus on locally-led action

15. Vulnerability to
climate change

16. Getting climate-smart

17. Getting climate-smart
Is risk financing
empowering
those most
affected?

18. 4. We need to break silos
(incl between government departments, within the
multilateral system, and between levels of
government)
Financing solutions for loss and damage should
remove rather than create perverse incentives
(don’t repeat the mistakes we made on adaptation
finance!)

20. Maarten van Aalst
vanaalst@climatecentre.org
@mkvaalst